Review of The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963 at Chicago Children's Theatre

Once upon a time I went to a show and it was called The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963. It was based on the book by Christopher Paul Curtis, adapted by Cheryl L. West, and directed by Wardell Julius Clark. It was about a family called the Watsons who were taking their eldest child Byron (Stephen "Blu" Allen) to stay with their grandma (Deanna Reed-Foster) in Birmingham, Alabama to teach him how to behave. On their travels they encounter more overt racism than they faced in Flint, Michigan, which causes the youngest son, Kenny (Jeremiah Ruwé/Nelson Simmons), to question what the world is really like. It is about family, injustice, and fear. The play introduces kids to the some of the darker sides of the history of the civil rights movement and reflects anxieties of parents and children when faced with racism and significant social change.

I really loved the family dynamic in this story. Some of my favorite moments were in the car with Daddy (Bear Bellinger), Mama (Sharriese Hamilton), Kenny, Byron, and their little sister Joey (Jillian Giselle/Lyric Sims). I really liked how when they put on Kenny's music, most of them couldn't stand it. It was very funny to watch the time lapse of them growing more disgusted with the song. That they kept playing his song nonetheless showed how much they loved him and how fair they were. I loved the relationship between Daddy and Mama especially. It was very playful and they worked well together. The whole family seemed very connected not only as the characters but as the actors, and they played well together throughout. I think a good example of this is the shaving scene. It was adorable on top of providing some exposition, which is hard to fit in to an adaptation for children, but I think it fit well and furthered my love for the family. Also, I think Grandma Sands might be the most lovable character ever because she was so free, caring, and wise. She loved a good joke. I loved the specificity of her relationships with each of the kids.

I think that this adaptation made a choice to make the whirlpool (which Kenny mishears as Wool Pooh) a specific and visible character (played by Ian Paul Custer), which stripped some of the actual emotion and injustice out of the story because in that moment they make it a fantasy with monsters. The Wool Pooh as a monster represents a lot of the chaos and danger of the south, but because it was a person in a costume, I didn't feel like it worked to do that. It felt like they were almost trying to convince the audience that none of the injustice was real so as not to scare the kids. In the book I found the disorientation of the church bombing that Kenny experiences, and where the Wool Pooh also appears, very effective and emotional. In the book it works because the Wool Pooh is described vaguely enough that it was more of a presence than a monster when he's trying to grab the shoe that we later learn belonged to one of the dead girls. By having him physically fight the Wool Pooh for the shoe, it makes it less realistic and seems to turn a real-life tragedy into a heroic fantasy battle. I think it is not actually that helpful to make it less realistic for kids; it actually makes them afraid of things they don’t need to fight instead of recognizing real problems in the world. I believe if kids are exposed to these topics at an early age, they can learn how to develop a new healthy humanized perspective that recognizes the reality of discrimination, danger, and death. I do understand that sometimes kids transform real dangers into imaginary monsters to make them easier to process, but when you are watching it, it was hard to still place the scene in reality.

People who would like this show are people who like realistic family relationships, detailed introductions to difficult topics, and youthful grandmothers. I think that this show has some beautiful elements and a great story.


Photos: Charles Osgood