Alison Roberts, Independent Theater Critic

When We Were Colored, A Mother’s Story” is a rare theatrical treat that serves up

nostalgia of just the right flavor – neither too sweet nor too sour. It’s a family story that

will make you laugh, remember (if you’re old enough), and reflect – and it’s suitable for

every member of any family.

The play follows the real-life experiences of a middle-class black woman, Eva Rutland,

who moves with her husband and young children from the South to Sacramento in the

early 1950s. The Rutlands face specific challenges, including racism and discrimination,

but they thrive as they navigate the universal joys and tribulations of raising children.

Back-to- school night is just one of the relatable and very funny scenes.

Ginger Rutland, a former longtime editorial writer at The Sacramento Bee, turned

playwright for this project, which she considers a “love letter” to her parents, Eva and

Bill Rutland. The play is adapted from a memoir of the same title, written by Eva

Rutland.

Imani Mitchell -- a local director, playwright and actor -- plays the matriarch Eva. She

first emerges on stage as a 90-something, blind and crotchety woman. But as the story

unfolds, she is transformed into the young, beautiful Eva, a transformation assisted by

photographs of the real Eva as a young woman which are projected in the background.

Bill, her husband, dead when the play begins, comes to life to help Eva tell the story of

their life together. Broadway and TV actor Francois Battiste portrays Bill Rutland.

The Rutlands’ love story begins in Birmingham, Ala., just before the Second World War,

then proceeds to the ‘50s as the Rutlands migrate from the Jim Crow South to the

imperfectly integrated Sacramento, Calif. Once here, the family mavigates – sometimes

noisily -- through the civil rights era, black-power movement and finally to the racially

blended families of today. Ginger, played by veteran Sacramento actor Brooklynn T

Solomon, narrates her parents’ story and, at times, enters it as herself. In one pivotal

scene, Ginger is a militant student at Howard, the historically black college in the

nation’s capital. It’s the turbulent 1960s; Martin Luther King has been assassinated; the

Vietnam War is raging and Ginger brands her too comfortable middle-class parents –

Uncle Toms.

The times and issues covered make the play a kind of social studies lesson that

manages to be thoroughly captivating and particularly enriching for children or for

anyone too young to remember.

The cast is rounded out by Elizabeth Anne Springett and Brandon Lancaster, who

seamlessly play various white characters who wander in and out of the Rutlands’ lives.

The final cast member is 9-year-old Ela’an Battiste, who plays Ginger as a child and

young Eva, matriarch Eva’s granddaughter. She is Francois Battiste’s real daughter, a

sweet nod to the centrality of family in this work; one of the reasons Battiste took on the

role was to share the stage with daughter Ela’an in her first professional performance.

Veteran director and producer Stephen Eich has designed a minimalist play. The sets

are sparse, so the play relies heavily on catchy period music and delightful historical

photographs of the Rutland family to signify the different decades represented on stage.

Playwright Rutland says too much of modern theater about black American life is

despairingly sad. She wrote her play to highlight a swath of black America seldom seen

on stage, in the movies or on TV – middle-class blacks who are just like everyone else.

As matriarch Eva says in the play: “They pay their taxes, send their children to school

and try, try to get along.”

“I want people to leave the theater,” Rutland says, “better informed about the challenges

black families face but also smiling. As my mother always wrote when autographing one

of her many published novels: Enjoy!”

“When We Were Colored, A Mother’s Story” runs Wednesday through Sundays now

until November 24th at Oak Park’s Guild theater. Tickets are available at the door or

through eventbrite.com.