The play begins with Janice Collen, alone on stage, telling us that she hates water. She understands that it is necessary for life, that the body is made up of 60% water… but she still hates it. Janice, an African-American woman, grew up in landlocked Beacon, Kansas in the 1960’s and 70’s. She escaped the state and her family to move to Ohio where she had her own family. But now, she is being pestered to return to her birthplace to speak at an event to honor her father. This memoir-style play, “the ripple, the wave that carried me home,” is the story of Janice’s relationship with her parents, who were major activists in trying to overturn the racism of the day that manifested itself in the segregated swimming pools, and her relationship with water.
From the time she was a child, Janice acted in her parent’s interests and became a spokesperson against racism. She also became an active swimmer. There were three “public” pools in Beacon but only one was open to Blacks. When there was a protest at one of the White pools and Blacks entered the water, they shut it down for days after for “sanitation.”
Four boys, who were friends and wanted to swim together (two Black and two White), but couldn’t do so at a pool, went to a local lake where three of them drowned because of the unsafe conditions. It led to a more active pursuit of integrated swimming pools, largely and sadly, to no avail.
Janice herself was an avid swimmer, taught by her mother. They used to go at sunrise to the White pool where a friendly manager let them in long before it opened on Saturday mornings, for Janice to swim. Returning from the pool one time, they were pulled over by a patrol car who told the mother to get out of her car. It was a scary and scarring moment for Janice to watch what happened.
But this is much more than the story of racism. It is a tale of being the daughter of an activist whose life is so much about fighting injusticee than caring for his daughter. She moves away after college, hoping to never return… until after her father has died. This the same year that the Rodney King incident and trial is going one. She is asked to return home for a ceremony honoring her father at a pool naming event. Besides having mixed feelings about returning, she is bothered by the fact that they are not also honoring her mother, who worked just as hard to fight the segregation of the day.
In spite of all the interesting information that I got from the play, my only objection was that often, it did not feel like a play, but rather a little like a lecture at times. I wanted more theater. Show me, don’t tell me. The cast of four was superb when they enacted the scenes. Janice (Patrese D. McClain) was an excellent narrator, but I have to work harder as an audience member in order to follow the narrative. And one hour and fifty minutes without an intermission, was quite challenging for me.
Nevertheless, I found the play most powerful and moving. I just wished that there was an act break to give me a chance to digest it all.
“the ripple, the wave that carried me home” by Christina Anderson at People’s Light, 39 Conestoga Rd., Malvern, PA 19355, 610-644-3500, peopleslight.org Thru March 24, 2024
Philadelphia Theater Reviews by Frank Burd 