Through April 16
THURGOOD Andrews Theatre/Irish Classical Theatre Company
There’s a long-running fight among historians over whether history is a study of great men or a look at social trends.
Both sides carry ancillary issues on the meanings of those points of view.
George Stevens Jr.’s “Thurgood” would argue for both.
But, he’s also arguing that great men can shift social trends, as lawyers like Marshall shifted the nation by shifting the law and the courts.
It’s also an argument about how a charismatic person can create a team to change the country, as law professor and later judge Charles Hamilton Houston turned law students at D.C.’s Howard University like Marshall into the lawyers who made the Civil Rights Movement succeed.
This was a time when Marshall wound up at Howard because the University of Maryland Law School didn’t take Black students.
There is a sense of victory in Brian Marable’s role as Marshall when the courts argue that wasn’t the “separate but equal” of Plessy v. Ferguson and Maryland had to integrate its ranks of law students.
That was Houston’s strategy, to force the courts to realize Plessy was a failure because the “equal” wasn’t taking place.
For Marshall, it meant an underpaid job with lots of travel away from his wife and heading to places where his life was really at stake.
This is a true one-man show, with no off-stage voices…with one exception…or occasional other performers to give Marable a break.
The one switch in character is when Marable switches to other characters in this story, like the legendary lawyer John W. Davis whose final case was the loss to Marshall in Brown v. Board of Education.
Of course, for Marshall, the sudden death of Chief Justice Fred Vinson also helped.
The one fascinating off-stage voice is a tape of succeeding Chief Justice Earl Warren announcing the decision in Brown.
While Marable is wonderful, the show starts sagging, as President Lyndon B. Johnson persuades Marshall to shift from the long crusade Houston started to becoming a judge.
There’s a lot less drama when sitting up on the bench to hear a case or when making decisions as one of nine members of the Supreme Court.
Eventually, Marshall is old and weary and frail and decides to retire.
He is to be replaced by Clarence Thomas.
“Thurgood” is a fascinating look at history, one man looking at his place in history.
See it.
A.W.
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