'Blood' Runs at the Agassiz

The spirit of Nathaniel Hawthorne looms large over Harvard. Several classes are more or less centered around him, and few English concentrators are likely to graduate without reading “The House of the Seven Gables,” or, morelikely, “The Scarlet Letter.”

It is perhaps not surprising, then, that Black Community and Student Theatre (BlackC.A.S.T) chose to produce “In the Blood,” one of Suzan-Lori Parks’ adaptations of the latter this coming weekend, Nov. 9 through Nov. 11 at the Agassiz Theatre.

Though this 1999 play may be less shockingly titled than Parks’ other Hawthorne-inspired work, 2000’s “Fucking A,” it still promises to unnerve Harvard students, at least according to those involved in the production.

Parks takes the social commentary of Hawthorne’s original one step further: while “In the Blood” is still very much a meditation on themes such as guilt, adultery, and other dusty Puritan affairs, the play also extends and ruminates on a range of modern ills, including poverty, homelessness, and the exploitation of those less fortunate.

“When [many Harvard students] hear about certain challenges people face, it’s hard for them to relate with that person if they don’t come from the same background. What’s great about this play is that it puts the audience in the atmosphere of the characters who face those challenges,” says Christian I. C. Strong ’09, one of the co-producers of the performance.

The play chronicles the life of a modern Hester—re-imagined by Parks as a homeless African-American woman living under a bridge with five illegitimate children—and her interactions with various figures of society who exploit her for their own gains.

The decision to perform “In the Blood” came after director Faith O. Imafidon ’07 and several other cast and production members were exposed to Parks’ works through Assistant Professor Glenda R. Carpio’s course on Contemporary African-American Literature.

“Faith and Jon and I were all in [the class]…we read a bunch of Suzan-Lori Parks plays and ‘In The Blood’ was our favorite…we just had to put it on,” explains Jessie E.A. Washington ’09, the other co-producer.

Parks’s works are difficult to perform by any standards. They are “multi-layered, historically aware, and linguistically complicated,” writes Hilton Als in a recent profile of Parks in The New Yorker.

“It took a good deal of time and effort to develop the right dynamic and tone for the show,” writes Renee M. Ragin ’10, who plays one of Hester’s children, Bully, as well as a welfare worker.

The challenge of performing “In the Blood” was compounded by the fact that all the actors (with the exception of Hester’s role) must play two different characters, according to Imafidon.

“This play is very challenging and the actors double as children and adults in Hester’s life who are exploiting her. So the fact that they have been able to do a 180-degree turn from one role to another, as both children and institutional figures has been very exciting,” she says of the six-member cast, which besides Ragin, also includes Jenne B. Ayers ’10, Jon E. Gentry ’07, Jesse W. Barron ’09, Andrew C. Coles ’09 and Chelsea Toder.

Though Parks’ plays are obviously informed by the African-American experience, Toder, a Tufts student and the only non-Crimsonite in the cast, argues in an e-mail that this is a play that “transgresses race, becoming a story to which everyone can relate.”

Ultimately, Imafidon hopes this performance will have an impact on the Harvard community’s collective conscience. For her, social awareness should not just take place in the classroom.

“It’s very easy for us to intellectualize and moralize and be distant about how we analyze issues. [Today], we’re still dealing with [issues like] single motherhood and homelessness and you can’t walk down a street around Harvard and not see people asking you for change. This play really removes the blind from your eyes.”