The Gospel According to James
This is a Draft
The Gospel According to James is a play about the events surrounding the 1930's Marion, Indiana lynching, written by Charles Smith. The play is told from the differing perspectives of Mary Ball, the supposed victim of rape, and James Cameron, one of her alleged rapists. Smith creates a meeting, decades later, between Ball and Cameron. Through their sometimes conflicting accounts of the lynching, the audience is taken back in time to relive their emotions and experiences. The play presents new information, without giving definite answers, leaving the audience with many new questions and the desire to learn more.
The play premiered at the Indiana Repertory Theatre in March 2011.
Reviews
The majority of the reactions to "The Gospel According to James" are positive. The play presented new ideas to the audience that the Theatre Review Called "powerful, richly layered, surprisingly multi issued" and "exhilerating". Most reviewers agree that the script and plot lines are beautifully written. Even the Inianapolis Business Journal who found the plays twists and different versions of reality to be "overwhelming" at times admitted that Smith's character developments were "borderline genius". Although IBJ found the less than definite stories and perceptions to be confusing, many reviewers found the room for personal opinion to be an endearing aspect of the play. NUVO Newsweekly came to the conclusion that "overall, this production, set against a nearly bare stage with a tree-painted backdrop, is disquieting, and deeply moving."
Interview
Alan Beck was interviewed about the play because he went to see the play and absolutely loved it, he was intruiged about the play and the actual lynching that took place right here in Marion, Indiana.He also met with André De Shields, who played James Cameron in The Gospel According to James. Beck wanted to expand his knowledge of the lynching, so he he did some research and along with André De Shields he visited some places that were tied in with the Marion Lynching. Alan was born and raised in Marion. Alan grew up as a "Proud Giant" at Marion High School. He attended Ball State and obtained a 5-year degree in land scape architecture. He moved to the East Coast for a year and a half after graduating from Ball State. Alan moved back to Marion because he missed being around his family and said, "its a different world out on the east coast." He owns Comfort Landscapes in Marion. Alan lives with his wife and two sons, one is 4 years and the other is 6 months.
1.What did you know about the lynching before the play?
"Growing up in Marion you obviously knew about the lynching and knew that it had happened, you would hear people talk about it a little bit now and then or they would do a special on 60 minutes and Marion would be mentioned on one of the big show." Beck admitted that he did not know much about the lynching he said, "I was ignorant in that area."
2. How did you hear about the play?
"A friend of ours called us up", said Beck. Alan's friend said that they were doing a play about the Marion Lynching down in Indy and asked if he and his wife wanted to go.
3. Growing up did your family talk much about the Lynching?
He said no because his dad was born in the Jay County area but even people and families that he knew that grew up in Marion did not talk about it. "It just wasn't something people talked about much." He said that the "race issue is always kind of delicate for our parents' ages, for us it is not as big a deal because as you go through the younger generations it is not as big a deal." Alan said,"It is probably easier for us to talk about it than the generations that got closer to the incident."
4.How did you feel after the play? What questions did it raise?
Alan said, "I loved the play, I thought it was phenomanally done, like the writing and the way it really made you think about not even really what happened in the play was a fact because I think it really wasn't set up that way, it was just set up to think when we go through any given experience, every single person could take away from a different thing or could see it a different way." Alan thought that was the coolest part because he likes to take everything he sees or does and reflect it into the play, musical, or show and also put it into his life. Alan said that it shows that "our own perception can be so different from someone else's perception of the same exact thing. He said he thought it was a neat to show us, "who knows what really happend back then? Even the people that were there, everyone sees it a different way." He thought it was interesting to see both points of views.
5. Why did you want to go farther and learn more about the lynching after the play?"
It kind of touched your heart because of the situation, not just from one stand point or another but everyone that was involved was affected quite a bit." Alan felt that "it pulled a lot of ignorance in his knowledge" and when he finds areas that he is ignorant in it makes him want to learn more, "especially when it is something that hit so close to home, and happened right here in Marion." Back at the time period lynching was a National and world wide issue, and Alan just "wanted to learn more, and fill his knowledge."
6.Why would it be beneficial for other to see the play?Why would it be beneficial to bring the play to Marion?
Alan said that it would be "neat" to bring the play to Marion because, "sometimes there is that weird vibe in Marion where you don't want to talk about it and want to hide it under the rug and not talk about it, but good and bad it is something we shouldn't forget about and need to be talking about in our schools and history." He thinks that it would be good for the community to "work on healing that, because in the generations above there is still that racial tension with some people." He said that the more you bring it out the more it will help"bury that hatchet."
7. How did you meet Andre?Alan met Andre at the "Meet and Greet", which took place after the play. Him and his wife stayed for 40 minutes and talked with the actors, writer, and director. Andre aske for Alan's phone number because he knew that he was from Marion and Andre wanted to visit Marion and drive around. Alan gave Andre his number and offered to be his guide ans said,"it will be the blind leading the blind", because Alan wasn't very familiar with all the places involved in the lynching,
8. What did you and Andre do when he came to Marion?
- Old Jail- took pictures and saw where they were dragged and lynched.
- Courthouse-looked around.
- Cameron's house- there are two addresses for his house, nobody is sure which one is the real one. One is on popular and the other one is on Landess, "it's kind of like the play you don't know what is a fact and what isn't."
- Lover's Lane(past 38th st.)- where the incident initially took place.
- Weaver's Cemmetery-where Tommy was burried, there are no markings because they were afraid people would go and desecrate it. (Abe was supposedly buried in Muncie)
- Box Company- got off of work early from the Box Company and went to the church to plot the event. Looking at the Box company and church was kind of "eerie, you could almost put yourself back in that time period."
- It was poruring that day they went around on the town, the rain started making everything "more real because the stuff they were looking and doing isn't something you would do on a nice sunny day."
9. Do you have any future plans to try to bring the play to Marion?
There is such a "mixed emotions" with that topic in town. He said that there is a large group of people that think it is a good idea to bring the play to marion but there are still a lot of people that do not want to bring it out and as business owner Alan finds it hard to "stick out his neck" on controversial issues such as the Marion lynching because you can offend people. Alan doesn't necessarily want to bring the play to Marion but perform the play with local Marion people since the event took place here in Marion. He said "we have so many talented people wether it is Civic Theatre, Indiana Wesleyan, Taylor, Black History Club, or Marion High School students, we have the talent here!" He said,"it was more of the story that made it so phenominal, it was really the writing and story itseld that made it so neat", he would like to see Marion get the right and be able to perform it as a town, he believes it would make it more "powerful" if it was being done by people in Marion. If it is being done by local people it's not like "outsiders are coming in and ramming it down our throats or shoving it in our faces", it is harder for people to complain if it is us performing it rathere than letting people from outside of town do it.
Comments
"It was a spur of the moment I was just going to go watch the play but once you really get into the story, you get to the point where you want to learn more", said Beck. It is an interesting issue, "especially for an area like this, where there was obviously racial tension for some people, Marion and the midwest had a lot less tension than some other areas lynching Tommy and Abe without putting them through trial shows us how volatile the situation was." "It is something we don't want to lose, if we're not careful it just gets lost." "The less we talk about it the more the next generatino will be lost." He wants to see all this information gathered and put it into some type of media so that it will come alive and not get lost. Alan believes that, "it is not about exaclty what happened to who and who did what we need to bring the history of the lynching up and make our own chances to learn from it and grow."
