Sensitive and Important: "Miss Evers" Boys" @ Riverwalk

Ken Beachler’s current play (opened 2/22/08) at Riverwalk Theater, Miss Evers’ Boys, takes the audience to rural Alabama ,1932. It’s a time when most blacks in the South could not read, the nation was in fear of the plague of syphilis, and modern medicine was just starting to emerge.

The play is a fictional rendering of one of most heinous programs our federal government was ever involved in. Our leaders in Washington decided to use several hundred syphilis-afflicted rural blacks in a medical experiment (The Tuskegee Study). Doctors and nurses followed the progression of the disease, never treating it, but merely examining how it affected the body and to study whether it was different in blacks than whites. Over the years they literally watched these men die a horrible death.

The fact that most people know about this experiment undermines the dramatic impact of the play. But despite that fact, the fine acting and sensitive directing brings forth a strong emotional statement.

The action opens on a stunning set. Craig Mitchell Smith designed an open-raftered church/schoolhouse building complete with a cupola and bell. The structure is a powerful image throughout the production and Richard Chapman makes the most of it with lighting angles that produce dramatic shadows of the rafters.

We meet the four engaging young rural black men who represent the hundreds of others who will be the government’s guinea pigs: Caleb (Guy Stockard), a charismatic, fast talking, would-be preacher man; Hodman (Bruce Wade), a man who believes in folk medicine and black magic more than he does science; Ben (Ralph Sims), a slow, amiable and agreeable farmer; and Willie Johnson (Markitwia Jackson), a bright-eyed entertainer who tap dances like a champ. And we also meet the heart of the show, Nurse Eunice Evers (Monica Sanders), a woman who believes in nursing and believes in her people.

It is heartbreaking to watch these ignorant rural men give up their future and their life to get suckered into this infamous experiment. They did it for free medical care and for $50 in burial money. As a gift, the government also gave them a whopping $14 after undergoing fourteen years in the study.

The most tragic character in the play is Nurse Evers, played beautifully by Sanders. She brings to the character all of confusion and ambivalence she has throughout the experience. She wants to help her “boys” but she also wants to be a nurse involved in an important study. As the play continues, she begins to understand the enormity of the lies she must tell to her four subjects. The pathos she brings to the role, focuses the entire audience to the core of play.

Another stand-out is Jackson who displays stunning tap dancing technique and a sparkling stage personality. The scene he shares with Dr. Douglas (J.D. De La Ossa), the white doctor who heads up the project is one of the best of the evening. Thinking that he has nothing in common with white men, Douglas tells Johnson about attending the Cotton Club and The Apollo Theater in Harlem, and describes the dance steps used in those hallowed halls.

The audience watches his slick dance steps destroyed by the onslaught of syphilis.

The four black men create a wonderful ensemble, playing off each other’s personalities and styles perfectly. And their affection for Miss Evers, and hers for them, is the centerpiece of the story.

Despite the appealing and interesting characters, and touching story , the play suffers somewhat from a slow pace and by the inevitability of the ending. Everyone knows how it will continue and how it will end. But still, Beachler molds his cast to produce an emotional and important piece of theater.