Review: 'We Shall Someday' premieres in Minneapolis with stubborn hope

Being polite and well behaved does not save Julius Tate in 1961 from mindless violence against his Black body. He leaves his job as a short-order cook in Arkansas to become a Freedom Rider in the Deep South, facing violent scorn as he joins others seeking to make America live up to its creed.

Twenty-seven years later, his 15-year-old grandson Jay, an A-student, would be savagely beaten by police, not in the South but the North.

You can understand, then, why Ruby, Julius' daughter and Jay's mother, would be upset and terrified. But what's new, even surprising, is that Ruby (Erin Nicole Farsté) gets to express her rage in "We Shall Someday," a powerfully affecting work by composer Ted Shen and playwright Harrison David Rivers that world premiered Saturday in Minneapolis for Theater Latté Da.

From time to time Black women, like all people, have reasons to be angry. But they don't often get to play in that space onstage, on screen or in books. In passionate singing that includes a few choice words, Ruby pours her heart out in frustration with a sliver of hope that those sworn to serve and protect will serve and protect her son.

A cry for justice courses through "Someday," which cleverly tracks one family across three generations and three decades as they confront police violence. This is a work of art, not politics or sociology. The Tates have coping strategies that are apt for their respective eras, but their shared goal, ultimately, is to be able to flourish and not have their souls distorted by fear.

Structurally and stylistically, "Someday" is more a chamber opera. The principals deliver musical monologues in three respective, largely solo, scenes. Rivers draws his characters with humor and idiosyncratic specificity. And his words are sometimes more like the recitatives of opera than dialogue.

Shen uses a historic prism to distill his compositions, executed mostly flawlessly by the cast and Denise Prosek's seven-piece band. Shen interpolates spirituals and hymns, including "We Shall Overcome" and "I Shall Not Be Moved," for the 1960s, throwing in some jazz and protest influences as well.

The drama in director Kelli Foster Warder's crisp, no-fuss production comes from the characters' inner turmoil as they grapple with how to survive in a world where, to be normal and walk straight, they need the equivalent of a V-8.

Roland Hawkins II, who plays Julius, projects with a rich and resonant tenor. His instrument, expressive and flexible, floats as needed between the pleasing lyric and troubled duskiness. Clad in high-waisted black pants, white shirt and slim black tie, and smiling with a pleasant disposition, he embodies the respectability politics that Black folks believed would lead to acceptance. He even tells us of the kind of manners drilled into him — "yes, ma'am and no, ma'am, yes, sir, and no, sir, mister, master, whatever you prefer."

Sung cheerfully at first, these words take an ominous turn when Julius is imprisoned at the notorious Parchman Farm for protesting. The lighting design casts prison bars onto him, illuminating how Kyia Britts adds texture and depth to Sarah Bahr's spare set, which intimates the façade and steps of a courthouse.

In the third act, Ronnie Allen's Jay goes in and out of emotional spaces with skill, showing a range from riled and exercised to lighthearted as his character copes with the triggering violence inflicted on Rodney King. As he sings and raps, Allen also is making his mark in a show informed by Paul Laurence Dunbar's "We Wear the Masks," on the one hand, and Public Enemy's "Fight the Power," on the other.

"Someday" may be set in the past, but it feels painfully current.

'We Shall Someday'
Who: Book and lyrics by Harrison David Rivers. Composed by Ted Shen. Directed by Kelli Foster Warder.
When: 7:30 p.m. Wed.-Fri., 2 and 7:30 p.m. Sat., 2 p.m. Sun. Ends May 14.
Where: Ritz Theater, 345 13th Av. NE., Mpls.
Protocol: Masks required only at Wednesday and Sunday performances.
Tickets: $35-$71, 612-339-3003, latteda.org.