Sunday, August 9, 2015

Fringe Festival 2015: "Ferguson, USA"

Day: 8

Show: 35

Title: Ferguson, USA

Category: Drama

By: Random Walk Theatre Company

Written by: Maxwell Collyard

Location: U of M Rarig Center Arena

Summary: An intensely powerful play about the shooting of black teenager Michael Brown by a white cop in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014.

Highlights: Maxwell Collyard has written a powerful and thought-provoking play, weaving together scenes of the shooting and its aftermath with spoken word poetry, tied together with the recitation of what everyone agrees on: "who, what, when, where." The harder one to grasp is "why." The strong four-person cast (Andrew Erskine Wheeler, Ashe Jaafaru, Brid Henry, and Talief Bennet) plays multiple people involved, including a brother and sister who knew Michael, the cop who shot him, and FBI agents who may or may not be trying to get to the truth. I ended up seeing this show because the one I intended to see was sold out, and I'm glad I got the opportunity to witness this well-executed piece that tackles some important and difficult questions, without ever preaching to the audience or providing pat answers.