Review of Bushnell

Review of Bushnell

Warriors Don’t Cry November 16th

School field trip to the Bushnell, a solo show of a black woman produced by Jessica Maria Kight, an energetic and powerful actor. The story starts at “the center of a violent civil rights conflict” (Melba Pattillo Beals) and presents Melba’s high school memory to the audiences. Also, elements such as violent, racism and segregation are completely showed.  

As a liter and Perf IB student, I not only focused on the meaning of the play but also learnt from the actor herself. Technically, this show contains a very strong political taste in order to emphasis the segregation between the blacks and the whites at that specific time period; how did this violet and non-equality grew in the school where supposed to be a pure and peaceful place. White people looked down to those black people and treated them as slaves and beasts. Rights and respectfulness did not belong to the blacks at all. As both teachers and students teased Melba, she was suffering an affront. 

Maira, the performer of the show, completed the various emotions of different characters all herself--Melba, grandma, teachers and so many others. Different character have different personalities, but Maira separated them successfully and clearly brought them to audiences. When she was Melba, she stood still, looked straight forward and rise her voice which made her sound like a bright young girl; when she was grandma, she bended down, put one hand on her back and used low and shaking voice to pretend she was a old old lady; when she was teacher, she stood pretentiously crossing her legs to show the edges and curves of her body and used waving voice to show how scornful she was. Because of Maira’s performing skills, the play was full of ups and downs instead of boring. There was no stage changing, no other actor, so the only way for her to caught audiences’ attention was her acting skills. When I think back, I can always remember how powerful she was. 

Learning from this play, “n word” was ear-piercing. In order to be accurate and truthful, this word was used a lot. Was racism be solved completely? I believe it is still there. Not only for black and white.