She captures how Hamer’s learning about her right to vote at the age of 44 compelled her to act. That said, Butler conveys Hamer’s story with great clarity and power. Butler presents a polished depiction of a woman known for presenting plainspoken groundedness. We don’t get much about Hamer’s early life, even though there’s a collection of Hamer recordings entitled “Songs My Mother Taught Me.” And we’re not ever quite led to understand what made LBJ so concerned about Hamer, that she didn’t present the image of the civil rights movement that politicians wanted to project. There are elements I wished there were more of. and Felton Offard - provide occasional encouragement as well as background vocals, and the music direction from Offard invests the sound with ’60s-ish jazz appropriate to the story.Įverything here under Henry Godinez’s direction - including the set (Collete Pollard), costumes (Michael Alan Stein), and projections (Rassean Davonte Johnson) - is intended to serve the focus on Butler’s Fannie, which is exactly as it should be, and Godinez is careful not to over-produce the theatrical elements that likely weren’t available when an abridged version of this piece was performed in Chicago parks last year during the extended shutdown of indoor theaters. The band members - Deonte Brantley, Morgan E. The model here is much less musical theater and more church service, with music as punctuation and expression of aspirational emotion.
Actually, she would be pretty darn perfect even if there were no music, but it’s the singing that ultimately carries the most inspirational moments of this show.Īccompanied by three onstage musicians, Butler moves fluidly between speech and song, helped by lighting designer Jason Lynch. Faye Butler the perfect performer to play Fannie Lou Hamer. The music, a mix of spirituals and protest songs, also makes the magnificent E.
When her daughter passes away from an ailment partly due to malnutrition, and Hamer feels riddled not just with grief but with guilt, she sings to summon self-forgiveness. When she’s beaten terribly for her efforts, leaving permanent damage, she sings to summon resolution and love. When a white police officer pulls over a bus of protesters, who become silent in fear, Hamer sings to summon courage. In West’s depiction, music is there when Hamer most needs it. As Hamer says early on, “Nothing like a song to find your truth in someone else’s story.” The songs take us beyond the facts of Hamer’s life into something deeper about what steeled her. What takes this beyond a more traditional one-person play is the frequent incorporation of music. And as she goes back in time and through the story of Hamer’s life over the next intermission-less 70 minutes, West expresses quite clearly that her subject was as brave and resolute as one can imagine a human to be. West’s one-person play with music, “Fannie (The Music and Life of Fannie Lou Hamer),” starts with this very scene of interruption and newfound fame. Fannie Lou Hamer became a nationally known figure because the president of the United States would rather the country not know her name.Ĭheryl L. The gambit didn’t go unnoticed, and Hamer’s testimony was replayed widely. Johnson had called a spontaneous press conference at the White House, just to pull the focus from Hamer’s testimony. Run time: 1 hours and 10 minutes, with no intermissionīut when she started to tell her story of trying and failing to register to vote, the cameras suddenly cut away.