Marvin X Calls for Black Arts West Theatre Festival

Marvin X Calls Black Arts West Theatre Festival
Marvin X, godfather of the West Coast Black Arts Movement, is calling a Black Arts West Theatre Festival in honor of Lorraine Hansberry Theatre founders Stanley E. Williams and Quentin Easter, also in honor of Margo Norman, who transitioned recently. Margo performed in the plays of Ed Bullins shortly before he hooked up with Marvin X to establish Black Arts West Theatre in San Francisco's Fillmore District.

Before Black Arts West came on the scene, there was Aldridge Players West, with Adam David Miller, et al. After Black Arts West, there was John Doyle's Grassroots theatre and Michael Cattlett's theatre.

And then came the Lorraine Hansberry. In 1972, Marvin X established Black Educational Theatre in the Fillmore, and in the late 90s, Recovery Theatre in the Tenderloin and throughout the Bay and Northern California. His play One Day in the Life is the longest running play in the history of North American Africans in Northern California. It ran from the late 90s into the new millennium.

Other theatres came and went, and few were able to survive on the meager budgets grant agencies doled out. The Lorraine Hansberry was the exception, partly because of their non-political stance as per the cultural revolution. But when they produced a performance of Marvin X's One Day in the Life, they transcended the apolitical. They'd also produced a work on the Black Panther Party, along with their signature work of August Wilson.

No matter the politics of Stanley and Quentin, and for that matter August Wilson, Marvin X considers them comrades in the arts. Any black artist with an iota of consciousness is all right with me. Actually, I appreciate artists period! Of course I appreciate revolutionary arts even more. But any black artists must have some degree of radical consciousness since he must confront and submit himself to the art of Western mythology.

Even the Lorraine Hansberry theatre brothers told Marvin X, "Marvin, the Black bourgeoisie would like to support you, but they cannot accept your language, if you could only alter your language they will support you." But when Marvin X submitted to the black bourgeoisie request, they did not accept his B script. Even Quentin Easter cried, "Marvin, you have taken all the chocolate out the milk!"

Marvin recalls one night at the Lorraine Hansberry: "The theatre was packed to overflow. Actually, when Stanley came he said, oh, no, this is a fire hazzard! People were seated on the stage."

Usually, I would go into the audience during my monologue, but not this night, the audience was seated onstage for lack of seats. They were from recovery programs from throughout the Bay Area. The Theatre District was horrified when all these recovering addicts took intermission on Sutter Street in the midst of the theatre district.

But more than this, Dr. William H. Grier was in the house. For those who don't know, Dr. William H. Grier is the co-author of Black Rage, the classic psychological study of North American Africans in the 60s. One of his sons is David Allen Grier, but his son Geoffery was playing the role of Black Panther c0-founder Huey P. Newton in my play One Day in the Life.

In truth, Geoffery was never able to match the psychopathic personality of Huey Hewton. Even though Geoffery had been a Crack fiend with me in San Francisco's Tenderloin District, he found it difficult to match the psychopathology of Huey Newton.

But Dr. Grier, being the psychiatrist he was, asked me how I was feeling before the play began.
I responded with a statement that didn't hardly satisfy the doctor. He told his son Geoferry, "I don't know what's wrong with Marvin. He has Mayor Willie Brown introducing his play. He has a packed house. He has a Jaguar car packed outside, yet he's singing the blues."

Dr. Grier, it's called Divine Discontent. In ghetto language, it's called an ungrateful bastard.

No matter, let us put together a Black Arts West Theatre Festival in honor of Stanley Williams, Quentin Easter and Margo Norman, now ancestors in the Black Theatre Movement. Of course, we can never forget Nora Vaughn and her Berkeley Black Repertory Group Theatre.
--Marvin X
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