Dreams don’t have to be deferred. They can grow and bloom; they can bring nourishment to the soul. The sentiment, if not the words exactly, of creator Shemika Renee in the setting the tone for her one-woman production of Ms. Story’s Living History, now appearing at the Greenbelt Arts Center through March 3rd, 2024. Directed by Rikki Howie Lacewell, this educational presentation explores important narratives of historical women of color, telling their stories to help unravel the mystery of history when all too often these stories are overlooked. Situated in the middle of Black History Month, Ms. Story’s Living History is crafted and inspired from Shemika Renee’s own work as a ‘living history teaching artist’ where she presents stories of this nature to elementary school-aged children and has been doing so for nearly 20 years.
The concept for this production is extraordinary; the stories contained within presented with the utmost reverence and respect. Shemika Renee has chosen a format of presentation that will keep the audience intrigued— each weekend that Ms. Story’s Living History is on-stage is presented as a ‘different chapter’ in this overarching history book and each chapter features a different series of characters to be encountered. It was disclosed to me that the initial character— an unnamed woman recounting a “Lost Story” (which on the whole serves as a much more powerful representation of all of those people enslaved that were lost to history, whose stories were never told because they were numbers in a ledger book rather than human beings with names)— and the closing character, Lorraine Hansberry (Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Raisin in the Sun) are the same across the chapters but the stories of these real historical women that you meet, vary from week to week.
That said, the pacing over the show overall is a bit off and the overall run-time is a bit long (even for adult audiences.) It’s very clear that Shemika Renee wants to tell as many stories as possible (hence rotating the cast of historical figures that you meet from weekend to weekend) but given that each encounter, or each ‘story’ with these historical figures could be a stand-alone performance, it just feels like it runs on in a way that ultimately causes the audience to fidget around a bit, check their watches, etc. There are moments when Shemika Renee has pauses (and who can blame her— it’s clearly a whole bunch of historical facts that have to be accurate as she’s delivering them while still maintaining the essence of who she’s presenting at any given moment) that sometimes stifle the show’s overall pacing…and it’s difficult whether to tell these are intentional pauses (which I don’t think the show needs) or if they’re pauses of trying to make sure all the details being delivered are matching the historical figure she’s currently embodying.
Shemika Renee does an excellent job of physically committing to each of the characters (I was asked specifically not to discuss the individual women that I was presented with on the evening I attended the performance) and there is a clear differentiation between each of the characters that she presents. (Costumes/hair/makeup are all designed and provided by Shemika Renee.) Where there’s a slight muddling is with the “interruption” of the Ms. Story character. While the attempt at the comedic device (using the narrative character to break out of the character being presented to address the audience directly in a quirky and comical yet informative way) is not entirely ineffective— it needs just a hint of finessing to make it truly function. A lighting cue here would be sublime— something to signal the freeze-frame instance (as Shemika Renee pops out of her historical character and into the ‘Ms. Story’ character for just a moment to tell you some important historical fact or other) which would really help distinguish from the Ms. Story character and the historical woman being portrayed. (While the performer does use dialogue to achieve this…given that there was lighting designed for this production, it seemed like the effect could have been achieved more readily with a lighting cue.)
The sound design for the production, by way Kenneth Waters Jr. is superb. The pre-show ambience is soft classical music— the sort you might hear drifting gently along in the background of a bookshop. This music is interspersed with the sound of turning pages; it’s truly a welcoming and priming soundscape. There are other well-composed sounds that fits each of the characters’ narratives as they arrive (completed as Shemika Renee exists with the flash of a side-by-side historical portrait of each woman- framed against a portrait of her playing said woman.)
The issue again with the production as a whole isn’t so much the performer or even the stories— it’s just the overall formatting and length. This type of “learn about history through first person living history” absolutely speaks volumes to young audiences, particularly in an educational setting. For adults, after the second story it seems a bit lengthy and pedantic. It isn’t that these aren’t important stories being told— they are. But for adults to want to ingest this much of a history lesson, the format might be better served with either briefer encounters with each of the characters, or fewer characters in any one given showing. It’s a difficult balancing act because the yen of wanting to portray as many important historical black women as possible is definitely strong. Even just one additional story framed on either side by ‘The Lost Ancestor’ and ‘Lorraine Hansberry’ would have made for a much tighter, more engaging experience for the adult audience. It’s difficult to dissect flaws in the production because the women that Shemika Renee has chosen to include are such fascinating women and their stories should be told; there just needs to be a tighter, more succinct way to tell them. Clearly, Shemika Renee has a handle on how to take a historical figure and bring it to life in an educational, narrative setting— when she’s recounting the tale of Anasi the Spider, which she does while portraying ‘The Lost Ancestor’ she engages a battalion of voices and facial expressions; when she’s playing various other characters of history she takes up the accents and affectations; the issue isn’t the performer. It’s just the over-all pacing, run-time, and structure for this particular audience, which appears to be marketed/geared more towards theater-going adults.
If you’re up for a history lesson— you’ll definitely learn a lot; the sound design and the effort Shemika Renee has put into the production are solid and worth attending.
Running Time: Approximately 2 hours and 10 minutes with one intermission
Ms. Story’s Living History plays through March 3rd 2024 at Greenbelt Arts Center— 123 Centerway in downtown Greenbelt, MD. For tickets call the box office at 301-441-8770 or purchase them online.
PLEASE NOTE: Greenbelt Arts Center does not offer concessions at this time.
