ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, February 17, 1996 TAG: 9602200103
SECTION: SPECTATOR PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NEW YORK
SOURCE: MICHAEL KILIAN CHICAGO TRIBUNE
HBO SPECIAL honors the works of black authors Maya Angelou, John Henrik Clarke and Richard Wright.
Black History Month usually brings a lot of historic documentary footage to the television screen, focusing on the events and rhetoric that exploded into the civil-rights movement of the 1960s.
Tonight at 10:15, HBO provides a look at black history through the all-seeing, sometimes tearful, sometimes wrathful, eye of literary fiction in ``America's Dream,'' an emotionally charged 75-minute trilogy of short stories by three noted black authors, including Maya Angelou. The stars include Danny Glover, Wesley Snipes, Tina Lifford and Yolanda King, actress daughter of Dr. Martin Luther King.
``I think it will be very eye-opening,'' said King, ``particularly for young people because the characters do have such dignity.
``I think in general it's important for people to be reminded of how far we have come. I think we forget how very different those times were - at least we want to forget, to push it aside.''
Each segment of the production represents a decade leading up to the historic turn of events of the '60s, and represents, too, a phase of black-white relations.
The first piece, ``Long Black Song,'' based on a short story by Richard Wright, is set in 1938 in Depression-stricken rural Alabama. Silas, a hardscrabble farmer played by Glover, lives with his wife, Sarah, and baby in the most primitive circumstances imaginable.
``He has nothing he can call his own except this relationship,'' Glover said. But he's had a relatively good year in terms of his harvest, and by dint of his Herculean labors, has earned enough to buy his wife, played with extraordinary conviction and delicacy by Lifford, a piece of cheap costume jewelry that is the Hope diamond to him.
But he is compelled to demean himself in a racist ordeal with a white storekeeper before he can acquire the bauble, the first possession of their married lives.
While Silas is in town suffering the throes of acquisition, a handsome, young white traveling salesman happens upon Silas' house, and contrives to seduce Sarah with the help of a crank-wound phonograph. The ending is fiercely dramatic, and far more edifying than predictable.
``Silas is the man who, in every way, exemplifies the terror in which black people exist,'' said Glover. ``It's the bitter river, it's the bitter drink that they drink, that they constantly live in some suspended state of fear.''
``When it's over, you don't think less of Silas,'' said Lifford, who starred as Glover's sister in the much-admired movie ``Grand Canyon.'' ``You think less of that mind-set, that consciousness that could have allowed a man who would be willing to work as hard as Silas works to be singled out and victimized. It is that hatred that lives in that shopkeeper that really winds up being the ugly cyst, the boil that is nasty.''
The second work, ``The Boy Who Painted Christ Black,'' based on a short story by John Henrik Clarke, takes place in 1948 Georgia, with action hero Snipes cast as George du Vaul, an upwardly mobile black school principal who has won the praise of his white superiors for keeping his student body well-behaved and ``in their place.''
He's about to be rewarded for this Uncle Tomism with a high-paying state job when he's challenged by an entry in his school's ``Pride Day'' competition: a young boy's excellent painting of Jesus Christ as a black person. Du Vaul's white boss is outraged by the thing, and Snipes is confronted with the sure fate of losing the big job unless he gets rid of the painting, destroying the boy's, and his own, pride and self-esteem in the process.
``The characters are true to form,'' said King. ``They have dignity, yet at the same time you see their vulnerability and you see the contradictions in their personality. They're written with such breadth - in more instances than not, it's not just good guys vs. bad guys. You really do get to see the humanity of these characters.''
The third, and most complicated, selection, ``Reunion,'' is set in the Chicago of 1958. Based on a story by Angelou, it takes place in a South Side blues bar run by Philomena (Lorraine Toussaint), a musically gifted black woman who, in her Southern childhood, was horribly insulted by Beth Ann, the white daughter of the woman for whom her mother had worked as a domestic.
Beth Ann has grown into a beautiful woman, languorously portrayed by Susanna Thompson, who comes slumming into Philomena's joint one night on the arm of a handsome black man drawling, ``It's sure different now.'' In her mind, Philomena plays out a fantasy in which she viciously humiliates Beth Ann, a means of exorcising the demon Philomina has carried since childhood. In the actual ``reunion,'' however, her revenge ends up tasting much different than she possibly could have imagined.
Each piece in the trilogy is about black pride, but each gives a distinct impression of how black and white have been inextricably linked to each other in American life. Taken together, these dramas chart a significant shift in the relationship of the races.
``The plays written in the '30s deal with the basic survival of people coming to terms with their existence, and finding the strength to carry on,'' said Glover. ``In the '20s and '30s, you needed to call on that strength like no other time, as opposed to the '40s and '50s, when you began to see some sort of a change and an acceptance, a different level of acceptance, of tolerance.''
``You find in all these experiences something that should be shared by the present generation,'' said King.
``It speaks for itself,'' said Lifford, who played the victim of a racist shooting in the movie ``Paris Trout,'' and who appears now in the CBS series ``American Gothic.''
``It acknowledges what all those African-Americans had to deal with back before the '60s and even now, when you run into that same racist consciousness. It says - whether people are willing or not to utter the words - `This is wrong. No human being should have to experience this.'''
LENGTH: Long : 112 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: 1. Jasmine Guy and Wesley Snipes star in ``The Boy Whoby CNBPainted Christ Black,'' one of the short stories featured in
``America's Dream,'' airing tonight at 10:15 on HBO. color
2. Danny Glover and Tina Lifford star in ``Long Black Song.''