Sunday night in Page, Felix failed to do justice to Martin, while Danny was a huge success with Langston.
"An Evening with Langston and Martin," sponsored by the Interaction Committee of the University Union and a myriad of other organizations, featured actors Danny Glover and Felix Justice interpreting the works of Langston Hughes and Martin Luther King, Jr..
Justice was the first on stage. After making a few obligatory cracks about the prowess of Duke basketball, he delivered what was supposed to be a stirring sermon by the late King.
It didn't work.
The material was not the weakness; the words themselves were as moving as might be expected from a King sermon. Reflecting on the eulogy he delivered in 1963 for four black girls killed by a bomb in a Birmingham church, King said, "I had to struggle with every ounce of [my] strength to resist the temptation to curse the darkness, but I realized that I had fallen prey to the very bitterness that had just cost us four of our children, and I prayed for deliverance."
These words could have conveyed intense passion and pain, but Justice was not able to rouse himself to that level. The crescendoes were contrived and the fire was forced, making it seem as if he had performed the piece too many times. He knew when and how to raise his voice and exactly what words to stress but appeared unable to feel what he was saying.
At the end of Justice's performance, I was left with the vague feeling that I had barely missed something that could have been extraordinary. Instead the piece was transformed by a superficial performance into something a drama student would recite for a grade.
All was not lost, however. Danny Glover gave an impassioned reading of some of Langston Hughes' poetry, which provided a relief from Justice. Although Glover stumbled over some words and appeared at times distracted--he just returned from South Africa last Friday--he was able to bring out the nuances of many of Hughes' poems.
Glover did particularly well with the humorous poems, such as "Sylvester's Dying Bed," which recounted the somewhat disjointed reflections of a man on his death bed, and "The Ballad of Roosevelt," a cynical look at the shortcomings of FDR's New Deal programs.
The poems, of course, were not all so light-hearted. "Birmingham Sunday" reflected on the above-mentioned 1963 tragedy in a Birmingham church: "Four little girls/Who went to Sunday school that day/And never came back home at all/But left instead/Their blood upon the wall." Glover captured the confused, somewhat angry tone of the poem, while keeping himself away from any sense of the melodramatic.
On stage, although obviously weary and inflicted with jet-lag, Glover appeared to enjoy himself immensely, whether reading humorous or dramatic poems. He possessed a genuine feel for the language and was able to convey his passion and intensity to the audience.
After the performance, the actors returned to the stage for a brief question-and-answer session. The two men were asked why they became actors, and both gave the same response--that they couldn't do anything else. After the questions were over and Justice and Glover arrived at their reception in Flowers Lounge, they expanded upon that answer and spoke of the responsibilities they have as actors.
"Any role or responsibility I have is that of a citizen," Glover said. "Maybe my voice is heard a little bit more; I don't know if it's actually listened to."
Justice also spoke of his desire to do acting that is "socially redemptive," and said that he sees himself as a "vessel" through which societal messages can be conveyed.
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