Surviving Jim Crow

The revival of “Southern Girls” playing at LA’s Hudson theatre follows the lives six childhood friends—three white, two Black, and one the mixed-race half sister of one of the white girls—who grow to maturity in the Deep South and have their scars to show for the pleasure.

Originally debuting in 1991 in the dark days after the Reagan administration, the play by Sheri Bailey and Dura Temple seems even more relevant today as racial strife—in the form of police killings and efforts to discredit Black history—has reached a fever pitch.

Initially, as young girls play high-and-seek on a front lawn of their small Alabama town, the girls seem little aware of the difference their races will play out in their lives in the years ahead. But soon enough, cultural pressures intrude, forcing them into divergent paths as they grow through the Jim Crow and Civil Rights eras, the Black Power movement, the Vietnam War protests, and all the tumult that followed.

Along with the racist sentiments of the times, they are buffeted by rape, lynching, sexism, and class snobbery on their road to adulthood forty years later. In some ways, the six characters are archetypes—the traditional Southern belle, the radical black activist, the hippie Gene McCarthy acolyte, the tragic mulatto…—but the actors under the direction of Zadia Ife so adeptly bring their characters to life that you can easily imagine six women going down the these paths life and their culture had set for them.

Our colleague Ed Rampell has written a full review here: “Would Florida’s Fascistic Governor Ban This Play and Burn the Script?

Certainly a play to see. Tell us your reactions.

All the Way West Productions’ of Southern Girls runs through Feb. 26 on Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00 p.m. and Sundays at 3:00 p.m. at the Hudson Backstage Theatre, 6539 Santa Monica Blvd., Loos Angeles, CA 90038. For tickets and info: www.onstage411.com/southerngirls.