With “Voice of Good Hope,” emerging playwright Kristine Thatcher has written a wise, warm and quite wonderful new play. Powerful to begin with, it has been given added strength through a carefully modulated production at Victory Gardens Theater and through a beautifully crafted, deeply felt stellar portrayal by leading lady, Cheryl Lynn Bruce.
The play is about Barbara Jordan, the black congresswoman from Texas who shot to national fame with her forceful presence on the House Judiciary Committee during the Watergate hearings and subsequently through her ringing keynote speech at the 1976 Democratic National Convention.
Jordan’s public statements are an important part of the play; but, without covering a lot of biographical material (good program notes take care of that), Thatcher’s script concentrates on just a few key incidents that defined the inner core of this complicated, difficult and admirable woman.
Beginning and ending near the end of Jordan’s life, when she was out of Congress and hospitalized with multiple sclerosis, the play presents three scenes revealing the nature of her spirit.
The first of these, and the one that explains the play’s title, shows the spunky 12-year-old Jordan (Karla Beard) expressing her early independence as she mixes with her “old sinner” maternal grandfather (Kenn E. Head). The second shows Jordan, in Congress, candidly and shrewdly dealing with Robert Strauss (Daniel Mooney), chairman of the Democratic National Committee, in a delicate matter of politics and morality.
The third scene, a small masterpiece, pits the ailing, still strong-minded Jordan against a radical young attorney (Yvonne Huff) seeking Jordan’s support for her election campaign. The clash of ideas and personalities is thrillingly escalated, and Thatcher has the guts to give the angry candidate the last word. “You’ve lived white too long,” she tells a stunned Jordan.
The bracketing hospital scenes, featuring Jordan’s longtime companion Nancy Earl (Meg Thalken) and a young white doctor (Kim Wade) who is Jordan’s equal in gumption, take place just before Jordan is to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1994.
Given a script with an exceptionally strong voice, director Dennis Zacek has staged the action with quiet, unerring simplicity. A spare, single set, by Jeff Bauer, serves as the locale for every scene, with the excellent actors silently changing the few bits of furniture and props.
The heart and soul of the play is Jordan, however, and Bruce, in a galvanizing portrayal, presents her with rock-solid intelligence and profound passion. Her Jordan is not a saint; she smokes, drinks and swears. But in her underlying belief in the glory of the Constitution and her abiding hope for the one-ness of America, she is magnificent.
Did I say Thatcher was an emerging playwright? I was wrong. She has emerged, brilliantly.
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“Voice of Good Hope”
When: Through April 23
Where: Victory Gardens Theater, 2257 N. Lincoln Ave.
Phone: 773-871-3000
