Kuntu Rep explores the human side of Harriet Tubman

“Harriet Tubman Loved Somebody”

Nov. 4-20

Co-directed by Stephanie Akers, Monteze… “Harriet Tubman Loved Somebody”

Nov. 4-20

Co-directed by Stephanie Akers, Monteze Freeland and Vernell A. Lillie

Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company

$5 for students with ID

www.proartstickets.org

Harriet Tubman was not an abstraction. Nor was she sexless.

Tubman, perhaps the best-known worker of the Underground Railroad, was a complicated figure whose biography lends itself to dramatization.

“As a young lady, Harriet was very hard-willed and spiritual, and that helped her get through difficult times,” said Stephanie Akers, co-director of William F. Mayfield’s “Harriet Tubman Loved Somebody,” a historical drama that Pitt’s Kuntu Repertory Theatre is currently staging.

“When I see theatrical representations of Tubman, she looks god-awful — kinky hair, slurring her words … They tend to want to ‘man-ize’ her,” added Dr. Vernell A. Lillie, founder of Pitt’s Kuntu Theatre and the producing artistic director of the show.

Kuntu’s production aims to humanize Tubman through a focus on her work ethic, her relationships and her gender identity.

“One of the things Mayfield wanted to do with the play was to show Tubman’s femininity,” Akers said.

Like all Kuntu productions, “Harriet Tubman Loved Somebody” expresses “the black intellect at work,” as Lillie put it.

For Lillie, expressing the black intellect means drawing from a reservoir of traditions — foremost among them the tradition of Kuntu, a form of theater that both entertains and educates.

“Kuntu drama has been around for centuries. It comes out of West Africa. The process is to present our culture as it is,” Lillie said. “One of the things that Kuntu drama does not show a great deal of is selfishness. I want to make this clear: Kuntu is about knowing each other — what I call a lack of ‘I-ness.’ Theatre is just not a solo game.”

Diminishing the “I” factor means more than just cultivating a spirit of cooperation. Kuntu actors often play multiple roles, sometimes in the space of a single scene.

In “Harriet Tubman Loved Somebody,” there are only three actors, but there are three times that many characters in the script. Thus, the actors are constantly adjusting their voices and demeanor, crossing race and gender lines in the process. Theorists call this psychodrama, or the use of roleplaying to enter the heads of others and explore their motivations.

Much of the play is narrated by Mahala Tubman, who married John Tubman after he and Harriet split.

“The show begins with Mahala reflecting back on the life of [Harriet] Tubman. As Mahala matured, she grew to really appreciate Harriet’s accomplishments,” Akers said.

The show, of course, aims to foster in audiences an appreciation for those accomplishments and also for the richness of Tubman’s personality. When asked about an ideal audience for the play, Akers had this to say: “We’d really like to have children come, because it’s such a historical play, and we’d like to see that African American history is ongoing — not just something limited to one month out of the year.”

Preserving a space for examination of the black experience has been Kuntu’s project since its inception in 1974, when Lillie founded the theater. Due to financial uncertainties, this may prove to be Kuntu’s last year in its current state.

“I’ve had a ball. God could not have been kinder to me,” Lillie said. “This year I thought I would consciously train actors so that they are able to direct Kuntu drama in the future. Everyone needs a culture of love, trust and understanding. If you don’t have that, you’re setting yourself up for tremendous pain.”