Harlequin’s ‘Until the Flood’ shows emotional aftermath of Ferguson’s fatal shooting
Harlequin Productions’ “Until the Flood,” opening Friday, Nov. 5, is set in Ferguson, Missouri, not long after Michael Brown was fatally shot by a police officer.
Playwright Dael Orlandersmith wrote “Flood” as a solo show, which premiered in 2016, after interviewing dozens of people about the shooting of the unarmed Black teenager.
But the play doesn’t examine the facts of the case, still disputed seven years after Brown died on Aug. 9, 2014.
“It’s not about who’s innocent and who’s guilty,” said Kristen Natalia of Lacey, one of six actors in the Harlequin production. “The focus is people’s emotions and people’s feelings.”
The characters — all composites, except the mostly silent poet-playwright portrayed by Natalia — include a young Black man hoping to survive long enough to go to college (Brandon JonesMooney); a white supremacist (Gerald B. Browning); and Edna (Natalia), a minister in an interracial marriage. Also in the cast are Michelle Blackmon, Vincent Orduña and Nikki Visel.
They tell very different stories, each with a different perspective on Brown’s death, police violence and racism.
“(Orlandersmith) brings the questions, the pain and even the unspeakable thoughts of hundreds, if not millions, to life,” New York Times critic Jesse Green wrote in 2018. “‘Until the Flood’ is an urgent moral inquest.”
“My hope is that, as you listen and experience each story in tonight’s tale, you’ll ask yourself how you can be a part of the solution,” Faith Bennett Russell of Seattle wrote in her director’s notes. “You don’t have to agree with every character or even like them. Just try to understand. Understanding revs the engine to the machine that propels us forward and on our way.”
Orlandersmith, a Pulitzer Prize finalist and Obie Award winner, aims to give audiences permission “to feel both comfortable and uncomfortable,” she said in an interview with Sarah Brandt of the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis. “I don’t speak for people, I speak to people,” she told Brandt.
Intense though the play’s subject is, Natalia found joy in it, too — and not only because she’s thrilled to be acting again after the pandemic’s long pause.
“It’s been enlightening,” she told The Olympian. “You get to peek into someone’s mindset, someone’s story. You typically don’t get to see someone be completely transparent.”
“Even though it is some heavy material, there are a lot of light moments,” added Natalia, who’ll be familiar to Harlequin regulars from roles in 2016’s “Vanya & Sonya & Masha & Spike,” “Little Shop of Horrors” and “The Stardust Christmas Enchantment.”
“It takes you through all the feels,” she said. “It’s a roller coaster in the best possible way.”
‘Until the Flood’
- What: Dael Orlandersmith’s 2016 drama is based on interviews the playwright did with people living in and near Ferguson, Missouri, in the wake of Michael Brown’s death.
- When: Nov. 5-Dec. 4 with evening performances at 7:30 p.m. and matinees at 2 p.m.
- Where: State Theater, 202 Fourth Ave. E., Olympia
- Tickets: $35, $32 for seniors and military, $20 for students and youth
- More information: 360-786-0151, https://harlequinproductions.org
- Preview: 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 4; $20
- COVID restrictions: Proof of vaccination or a negative test result is required.
- Also: The show is part of Harlequin’s fall rotating repertory season, which also includes “Tenderly” (closing Nov. 20) and “Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill” (through Nov. 27).