How does a play humanize an icon?

After a performance of the one-man play "Thurgood," Lester Purry was approached by the house manager, who told him a patron needed to see him right away.

An elderly Black woman awaited Purry, sobbing. His characterization of civil rights and social justice pioneer Thurgood Marshall had hit her hard.

"I fought for civil rights. I marched for this. And it hurts. It still hurts," she said.

For Purry — who played the first Black Supreme Court justice in Rochester, N.Y., and Portland, Ore., and is on stage at Penumbra Theatre through March 27 — that story illustrates what happens when a play explores the humanity of an iconic figure.

He is not the only actor playing an icon this month. Kevin Brown Jr. opens March 19 in "Parks" at History Theatre, playing photographer, filmmaker and former St. Paul resident Gordon Parks.

Both actors say one of the biggest challenges is reminding audiences that these famous men did not see themselves as heroes.

"One thing [Marshall's] second wife, Cissy, would talk about is he would come back home from all of his campaigns in the South, the trials, and say, 'I feel like a coward.' Because the Black people who stayed and had to live there were the heroes," Purry said. "He often talked about how much he loved whiskey, how much he loved the ladies. He didn't try to be a perfect human being. I think you'll see that in the play."

If one key to capturing the humanity of icons is to acknowledge their flaws, another is to depict them before they became icons. "Thurgood" covers all of the lawyer's life but "Parks" focuses on the photographer's youth, when he was discovering his talents. That recalls something Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Doris Kearns Goodwin has said about books such as "Team of Rivals," which she writes as if she doesn't know how the story turns out.

"We don't go into Gordon Parks, the man we so often conjure, that photograph of him with the shock of white hair," said Harrison David Rivers, who wrote the play with the collaboration of Parks' great-niece, Robin Hickman-Winfield. "This is the Parks who lost his mother young and was sent to St. Paul to live with his sister and was kicked out of his sister's home by her husband and lived on the streets."

Although getting by was a struggle, Brown believes that's also the period when Parks became an artist. In rehearsals, Brown is figuring out how to convey that Parks saw the world differently than most people do.

"I think he was a dreamer, that he was in touch with sound and light and music," said Brown, whose roles have also included the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. "Now, how do I show that? How do I get it across so [audiences] understand what is going on in my head? It has to do with his response to things, how he looks at people."

Hickman-Winfield — who teaches students at Gordon Parks High School that they can literally walk in the icon's footsteps and see the house where he grew up in the Rondo neighborhood — agrees.

"The part I want them to see is the side of him that loved his mother so hard, that he was influenced by the love of his mother. His love. His friendships. And how those early years influenced his vision," Hickman-Winfield said. "Great-grandmother instilled that in all her children, not just Uncle Gordon."

The thing about concentrating on his youth, said Rivers, is that "Parks" is not about an icon but about things that may have contributed to him becoming one: "We are trying to capture those things in Gordon Parks that exist in all of us. Feelings of loneliness, scrambling for meaning, the discovery, perhaps, of why we are here on this planet."

Looking back, it seems obvious that Marshall was put here to champion civil rights and Parks to create great art. But Purry says a key to his portrayal is not to get ahead of himself. He anchors his performance in stories such as the pivotal time when a young Marshall and pal Langston Hughes were steered to the "colored" section of a movie theater. Purry wants to live in how that moment felt, rather than show what it would lead to.

"He was so focused on waking the country up, not from but to its own nightmare, the way it was treating people. I don't think he really took the time to say, 'Hey, I'm a big deal.' I think he thought what he was fighting against was the big deal," Purry said.

Hickman-Winfield believes the generation that will fight those fights next needs to know about the people who came before them. Purry, too, thinks about the youngsters who attend "Thurgood."

"When [Hughes and Marshall] were just friends, hanging out, going to the movies, neither of them knew they would be the giants in our culture," mused Purry. "I often see young people who come to the play and wonder, 'Is the friend they're sitting next to the spark that will create their future?'"

'Thurgood'

Who: By George Stevens Jr. Directed by Lou Bellamy.

When: 7:30 p.m. Wed.-Sat., 4 p.m. Sun. Ends March 27.

Where: Penumbra Theatre, 270 N. Kent St., St. Paul.

Protocol: Masks and COVID vaccination (or negative test within 72 hours) required.

Tickets: $35-$40, 651-224-3180 or penumbratheatre.org.

'Parks'

Who: By Harrison David Rivers, in collaboration with Robin Hickman-Winfield. Directed by Talvin Wilks.

When: 7:30 p.m. Thu.-Sat., 2 p.m. Sun. (and streaming April 4-10). Ends April 10.

Where: History Theatre, 30 E. 10th St., St. Paul.

Protocol: Masks and COVID vaccination (or negative test within 72 hours) required.

Tickets: $30-$48, 651-2924323 or historytheatre.com.