“A man like you can make a wholesome thing out of bits and pieces.”
Oldest Old Man (Sherrick O’Quinn) directed these wise words to Hero (Brent Grimes), the explicitly defined protagonist of “Father Comes Home from the Wars: Parts 1, 2, & 3”, Suzan-Lori Parks’s earthshaking play about the American Civil War as told from the perspective of slaves.
His statement, however poignant, is deeply rooted in irony: Hero may have the admirable ability to create a whole and complete life for himself regardless of adverse circumstances. In terms of personhood and its intrinsic value, however, he and his fellow slaves are quite literally quantified by a tangible number or price.
They are externally defined as nothing more than the sum of the skills and attributes, the culmination of bits and pieces they possess that benefit an all-powerful “boss-master.”
Parks wrote “Father Comes Home” in 2015, and it’s been done by many theater companies across continents. This year’s MFA Acting students of USC’s School of Dramatic Arts brought it to life with such force and relevant purpose that the play feels like it is happening for the first time.
By combining internal and external conflicts, the actors, under the direction of Gregg T. Daniel, seamlessly intertwined enduring issues of race with universal themes of love, betrayal, and the ever-referenced “measure of a man”— what is the measure of a man, and is it greater than a man’s bits and pieces?
Many people are similar in nature to Hero: valued by others as much more than the sum of their physical and metaphysical parts. We all have the undefinable, indescribable something that makes us truly human, that adds to our value enough to make us greater than the sum of our parts.
Stories, however, are held to a higher standard. Some stories are simply equal to the sum of their parts: entertaining, but not much more than the accumulation of their characters and their words. You walk away from such stories feeling satisfied perhaps, but still unchanged.
“Father Comes Home” is a story that stretches beyond its groundbreaking, dialogue-driven script— Parks profoundly tells a story that America has needed for decades. This rendition was, so-to-speak, a written performance that extended beyond its actors— all of whom miraculously transcended physicality and time, and seemed equally confident in their intentions as they seemed vulnerable with their emotions.
Monologues given by both the Colonel (Lea Lanoue) and the Oldest Old Man (O’Quinn), though wildly different in substance, shared commonality in Lanoue’s and O’Quinn’s abilities to convincingly embody figures that are opposites of their own — either by dint of gender, age, and/or ideology.
The same was true of Atiya Walcott, who effectively personified a dog, an endeavor that she made humorous and original. Nona Johnson’s portrayal of Penny, Hero’s lover, and Troy Witherspoon’s role as Homer, Hero’s complex “rival,” further anchored the story. You believed them, and their relationship had real chemistry.
As for Grimes in the central role of Hero, he conveyed internal emotion without speaking a word. His remarkable capacity to illustrate Hero’s transformation as natural, human change rather than the more easily portrayed overnight epiphany was inspiring to watch.
I walked out of the small black box theater, however, fully aware that I had witnessed a story that carries a weight far greater than the sum of its individual parts. This brilliant ensemble of MFA Actors performed in service to Parks’ drama, surrendering whatever egos and individual identities to the question that Parks ultimate asks: What does it mean to be free?
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“Father Comes Home From the Wars” will be performed by the MFA Acting Year 3 on March 5, 7:30p.m. Scene Dock Theatre. dramaticarts.usc.edu/on-stage