An Excerpt from Earthbirds (The Blackbird Cipher)

Abstract

An Excerpt from Earthbirths (The Blackbird Cipher) Daniel Alexander Jones Earthbirths (The Blackbird Cipher) first produced in 1995, is a drama set in the early 1990s, about a young man's search for his connection to a silenced family history. Harper, the son of a white woman, Miss Lady and a black man, Captain, is haunted by dreams of the South—which he, born and raised in the Northeastern U.S., has never known firsthand. In his visions, the presence of his great aunt Mabel and a phantom figure called Shadowman nudge Harper closer to the violent stories that prompted his father's family's migration north. The play's elliptical structure weaves humorous testimonies from Harper's post-integration youth with the daily rituals of his parents and extended family; these rituals reveal the terror, rage, and hope that accompany the family's attempt to make peace with social and political realities far different than the utopian visions toward which they all moved at various points in time. As the play climaxes, Harper must decide whether he wishes to offer himself to Shadowman as a spiritual vessel, through which the most painful truths might be returned to the family's narrative or whether he will walk away and, in so doing, erase these truths from memory forever and deny the healing transformation that they offer. Earthbirths is based in a jazz aesthetic. Dialogue, movement, and image are meant to function through dynamic interplay as the characters make the internal external. They give testimony, like solos in a jazz song, both simple and complex—always, always moving on. The following excerpted scene demonstrates the aesthetic principles at work and witnesses the rituals in motion. Setting A massive staircase cranes in from the sky. Its steps range in material between the aged bricks of a Northeastern American city and the buckled wood of a 1920s rural Southern shack. The steps range in size from several feet in width and depth, to a shape barely able to contain a full footstep. The staircase connotes an urban river, twisted railroad tracks, and a gnarled tree simultaneously. A banister stretches along one side of it, itself a pastiche—Harper attaches pictures and objects to it, which creep like a vine along the staircase. The base of the staircase opens out like the mouth of a river onto a plane of red dirt that catches footprints like clay. The staircase appears, at times, to move of its own volition. All action takes place on the staircase; it contains all the rooms, roads and thoughts. Light bleeds through its cracks. Slide images are meant to manifest like phantoms, bleeding out from and back into the stairs—hanging in the surrounding space like hazy thoughts. [End Page 242] Characters HARPER: Early twenties. An awkward, graceful old soul in a new body. Tall. MABEL: Late eighties. The passing of a single star into spirit from flesh through high steps. She wears a simple cotton dress and a beautiful scarf about her head. ANGELITO: Mid-twenties. Twilight, he pulls the city through himself, dredlocked hip-hop conjurer who may not be real. CAPTAIN: Lion de-clawed and shorn. Harper's father. A black man, mid-fifties. MISS LADY: A long string of notes, sometimes muted, sometimes too consciously melodic. Sad eyes. A white woman, mid-fifties. Harper's mother. MR. UNCLE: Wears starched white cotton shirts. Punctuates his speech with his hands. Witness. Hustler. Black man early-sixties. BROTHER: A visit to South Carolina. Sends actions through words and pictures. Harper's brother. Ancient teens. VISITING BLACK GIRL: Harper's friend. Her face changes. She is not pressed. SHADOWMAN: Through music. The rage of the forgotten. Collective collected voice. The absorption of light. Coltrane's Meditations meets the soft howl of a slide guitar. Scene Three (COLLARDS) [Lights on Harper preparing pots of greens. Steps on the staircase are counter, table, and chairs. There are collards piled high, in varying states of preparation. Harper pauses from chopping and washing to...