Tarragon Theatre’s Our Fathers, Sons, Lovers and Little Brothers turns a hashtag back into a life

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• Title: Our Fathers, Sons, Lovers and Little Brothers
• Written and performed by: Makambe K Simamba
• Director: Donna-Michelle St. Bernard
• Company: Tarragon Theatre and Black Theatre Workshop
• Venue: Tarragon Theatre in Toronto
• COVID-19 measures: Masks; vaccine passport; reduced capacity
• Year: To April 10, 2022

First, you only see a pair of legs, sticking out from the wings. Has someone fallen asleep – or is this a more sinister scene? The rest of the Tarragon Extraspace stage is otherwise tranquil – a projected backdrop of twinkling stars and what looks like the metal ruins of an alien civilization scattered around.

As soon as you set eyes on a bag of Skittles and a can of Arizona Watermelon Fruit Juice Cocktail however, it’s clear who Makambe K Simamba’s solo show Our Fathers, Sons, Lovers and Little Brothers is about.

Trayvon Martin, the 17-year-old Black boy who was killed by a member of a neighbourhood watch on the way back to his father’s house in a gated community in Florida almost exactly 10 years ago, had gone out to get those snacks at a local convenience store on the night he died.

Skittles and Arizona brand drinks became potent symbols of innocence and youth snuffed out for no reason in the wake of Martin’s death, held aloft at the protests against anti-Black racism that sprung up afterward.

Another commonplace object that gained powerful symbolism was the hoodie that Martin was wearing and had pulled up over his head when it started to rain before he was confronted by a man who decided that there was something suspicious about a boy carrying candy and a sugary drink.

Though it shows us these symbols to provoke an immediate reaction, Simamba’s play about Martin is actually an attempt to take him out of the world of symbols and turn a hashtag back into a human being. She’s even stripped him of the name that packs such a powerful punch – Trayvon – and calls him by his nickname, Slimm, throughout.

Simamba plays Slimm as gawky and sly, a teen – like all teens – trying on different poses and imagining different futures for himself. We see slices of his life in the show: talking sweetly on the phone with his girlfriend; getting grounded for being caught with marijuana at school; in the back seat of the car with his younger brother while his father explains how to stay alive during a police stop.

Our Fathers – abbreviate the title, and you see more clearly that is the beginning of a prayer – is not a realistic play, however. It takes place in the moments after Martin’s death. The opening section of the play shows Slimm adjusting to life in the afterlife, trying to figure out how to use his arms and legs without gravity tying him to Earth any more.

There’s a Beckettian in-betweenness to where he finds himself in director Donna-Michelle St. Bernard’s production with a set designed by Trevor Schwellnus.

Purgatory is a recurring setting for plays about Black men and boys whose lives can be taken away for petty or absurd reasons such as walking home while wearing a hoodie, paying with a counterfeit $20 bill, or playing with a toy in public. Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu’s Pass Over and James Ijames’s Kill Move Paradise are two recent examples.

Our Fathers is not as heavy or hefty a work as those American plays. Indeed, it has an almost goofy framing device, as a book called Your Journey to the Ancestors: A Step-by-Step Guide appears to Slimm.

Some of the steps he follows have amusing results, while others create opportunities for sombre reflection. His journey involves moments of protest, moments of audience interaction and, most powerfully, moments where movement of his body takes over. St. Bernard’s production finds its way through all the shifts successfully.

One question I had, however, was: Is Our Fathers is about a teenager, or is it for teenagers?

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The world premiere production by Toronto’s b current – on which this one, a co-production between Tarragon and Black Theatre Workshop, is based – won awards in the theatre for young audiences (TYA) division at the Dora Mavor Moore Awards in 2019.

Tarragon, however, is not framing the current production as TYA – though new artistic director Mike Payette has spoken of his desire to introduce family shows to the theatre company. (This is the first piece of programming he is directly responsible for, an addition to a long-postponed lineup left behind by his predecessor.) This short, accessible show ultimately seems like it might be best used to ignite conversations among young people, or between parents and their teens.

Our Fathers is also available in a digital version from Tarragon Theatre from March 22 to April 10 and has an in-person run at Theatre Aquarius in Hamilton from April 26 to May 7.