'What is ghastly and really almost hopeless in our racial situation now is that the crimes we have committed are so great and so unspeakable that the acceptance of this knowledge would lead, literally, to madness. The human being, then, in order to protect himself, closes his eyes...' So wrote James Baldwin of his play on its publication in 1964, drawing attention both to a need to speak truth, but also to a need to speak it carefully. (As if spoken the wrong way it might not be heard.) 
      Based on the actual 1955 murder of black youth Emmett Till, the story of 'Blues for Mr. Charlie' emerges tentatively, almost incidentally, through a series of flashbacks. Over-heard conversations in bars and bedrooms, the murdered boy's bravado, a drinks party on the porch of the murderer's house, confessions of love, domestic quarrels. A deceptive sense of banality is established; a banality which then culminates and is exposed dramatically in the final courtroom act. Inevitably (according to the clichés) the murderer is formally acquitted - but the peculiar thing about this case is that he retaliates with a perverse off-the-record confession. The murder itself is suddenly and unexpectedly re-enacted, the black boy's defiance uncompromising, contemptuous. It becomes impossible to see the springs of the play's action in terms of mere idiosyncratic personal grudges or teenage angst; the final confrontation evidences simple racial hatred. The bullets hit the boy point blank, he doesn't flinch. 
      The trial, though it turned out to be a charade, had been instigated in earnest by Parnell James, the local newspaper editor. A most ambiguous protagonist, the only character who seems to be wholly at ease both among the blacks and among the whites - and yet mistrusted by both; Rolf Saxon portrays Parnell effortlessly, bringing out an analogy with the liberal powers of today as well as several complex questions. What is his interest in taking the case to court? Is it personal or political? To what extent is he disinterested, a voyeur? (He explicitly subscribes to a form of historical determinism that seems to absolve all the characters of responsibility - but doesn't this undermine his claim to respect their individual personalities?) Again, he claims to be close friends both with the accuser and the accused, but where do private affections end, and public evaluations begin? Are the private spheres of the murdered boy's bedroom and of the murderer's porch really morally distinct places from the public spheres of the church and the courtroom? Is it courage, or else mere ingenuousness, motivating Parnell's refusal to reconcile these domains? (Much is made of his material wealth, of the fact that he can 'afford to trust', afford to be liberal.)
      Early critics deplored the 'talky, over-written and clichéd dialogue and stereotypes', and many of the truths in the dialogue are indeed long since truisms. But part of the strategy of this play is precisely to demand that the clichés are heard again, that the audience rediscover them in a context where they cease to be bland or invisible. This puts special pressure on the cast to make their characters authentic, to transcend mere rhetoric. In this they largely succeed, most notably with Michael Price's Richard Henry. 
      The Tricycle Theatre has earned a reputation for showing drama with serious political intent ('The Colour of Justice: the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry', 'Nuremberg: the 1946 War Crimes Trial', 'Justifying War: Scenes from the Hutton Inquiry'). Talawa's production is young, vigorous, punctuated with music; the scenes short and physical. This accentuates the fact that the point of this play does not lie in subtle characterisations. It is about bearing witness; about the truth, and about the proper conditions for its recognition.
      The father of the murdered boy challenges: 'The truth cannot be heard in this dreadful place'. The witnesses are ranged along the front benches, behind them the jury, then the journalists, a few photographers. Injustice, on account of its prevalence as well as its perceived distance from us, ever threatens to become banal. It is a measure of this play's success that the call resounds; the wooden courtroom roof arches high above the stalls, and up into the shadows of the audience.
Naomi Goulder