Trouble in Mind

Act II begins with a new actor: Bill O’Wray, who is playing an old Southern gentleman named Renard in Chaos in Belleville. Manners is rehearsing a scene from the play with him, a tasteless monologue that is about combatting racism in moderation. Eddie holds a tape recorder with canned applause, ready to build excitement during the speech at the press of a button. He flubs it several times, and Manners loses his temper with the poor stage manager. He then turns his attention to Bill, telling him he really should sit with the Black actors at lunch so their company doesn’t appear segregated in the public eye. Bill is annoyed at all the new “rules” he must follow in society. He says, “Every time I open my mouth somebody is telling me don’t say this or that…Millie doesn’t want to be called ‘gal’…I call all women ‘gal’” (51). Manners asks him to at least try to pretend he doesn’t mind, if only to save face for the show.

Wiletta and the others return, and Wiletta approaches Manners. She tells him she went home and read the script over again, this time trying to justify her character’s actions like he asked. She tells him she showed the script to her neighbor, Miss Green, and she couldn’t make sense of it either. The biggest problem Wiletta has with her character is not the stereotypical costume or mannerisms, but the fact that she turns in her own son, who is subsequently lynched. She knows that this isn’t right or representative of what would likely happen in real life.

Mannners tries to justify the script, and John joins in to support him. He argues that from an artistic standpoint it’s justifiable, telling Wiletta, “They’ve probably never seen a movie or television…never used a telephone. They…they’re not like us. They’re good, kind, folksy people…but they’re ignorant, they just don’t know” (68). This does not satisfy Wiletta, however, and she still insists that the script undergo some changes. Manners can’t keep his temper anymore and reminds her that she’s the actor, not the playwright, and they will do it as written without asking any questions.

Tension builds as Manners defends the script as being anti-racist, and Wiletta refuses to back down on disagreeing with him. Sheldon eventually interrupts and begs the cast to let Manners direct so they can get on with it. Manners tells Wiletta she needs to really feel what is happening to her character, and to relate it back to herself. He says, “The threat of horrible violence throws you into a cold stark fear. […] I’m not asking you to dream up some fantastic horror…it’s a lynching. We’ve never actually seen such a thing, thank God” (69). Sheldon tells the cast that he actually has seen a lynching before. Manners is shocked, and they ask him to tell the story of what he saw. Sheldon proceeds to tell the story, which happened when he was a child, and the truth of lynching sends a chill down the cast’s spines. Suddenly, the violence they are talking about on stage has a very real presence.

The cast breaks for lunch. As they prepare to leave, there is a noticeable shift in the actors. Judy and John mimic Manners with their reactions to the morning’s events, all signs of acting with integrity vanished. Wiletta tells John, “You right, don’t make sense to be bowin’ and scrapin’ and Tommin’…No, don’t pay no attention to what I said” (74). John brushes her off in a direct imitation of Manners, and Judy stops in her tracks. She realizes that she and John have gotten sucked into the world of show business and are merely pawns in the game at this point. They exit, leaving Wiletta on stage alone. She tries to recite her lines, but is overwhelmed by what happened in rehearsal. The lights change all around her, as if she were suddenly back in Brownskin Melody, and then they subside to mark a passage in time.

After lunch, some of the actors return a little tipsy, but Wiletta returns clearer than ever. As they get into the scene, Wiletta is supposed to keep John on his knees while the two characters pray before she sends him out to turn himself in. Manners objects, but Wiletta keeps going with her own interpretation of the play. When Manners asks what’s going on, Wiletta replies, “All that crawlin’ and goin’ on before me…Hell, I ain’t the one tryin’ to lynch him. This ain’t sayin’ nothin’, don’t make sense” (78) and that she doesn’t believe her character would do such a thing. She tells him she was asked to justify her character’s actions, but she can’t. She elaborates, saying, “Tell me, why this boy’s people turned against him? Why we sendin’ him out into the teeth of a lunch mob? I’m his mother and I’m sendin’ him to his death. This is a lie” (79). She points out that if her character is performed as written, the white man will be presented as the hero, and the Black man as the villain.

Sheldon tries to diffuse the situation, but Wiletta won’t be stopped. She goes after Manners for directing this racist play, and he reminds her that he fought for her to have a better role than the stereotypical “mammy” in the last movie she was in with him. This makes Wiletta even angrier because the role was still a mammy after all that. She demonstrates all of the stereotypical caricatures she’s portrayed over the course of her career, making sure to stop between each one and tell them what each portrayal communicates to an audience, and how they each reinforce racism.

Manners won’t back down, and Wiletta asks if he would turn in his own son to the lynch mob. Manners tries to deflect the question but when Wiletta outright calls him a racist, he finally has an outburst of his own, admitting that he knows what he is directing is not the truth. He argues that his hands are tied, saying “Where the hell do you think I can raise a hundred thousand dollars to tell the unvarnished truth?” (84). He tells her American audiences aren’t ready for the kinds of Black stories she wants to see on stage and screen. To answer her question about her son, he ends his manifesto with this: “What goes for my son doesn’t necessarily go for yours! Don’t compare him (Points to John) with three strikes against him, don’t compare him with my son, they’ve got nothing in common…not a goddamn thing!” (84). This last statement proves Wiletta to be right. Though Manners’s intent for Chaos in Belleville is to show that the only race is the human race, the reality of it is that not all people are treated the same, and a lot of it comes down to race. Moreover, Manners has his own prejudices that he pretends aren’t there, but which are all too clear to the rest of the company.

The fate of the play is unanswered. Manners storms out, and the cast is left wondering whether they will get to put the show on Broadway after all. Even though the cast agrees that what Wiletta said was true, they aren’t willing to risk their careers over it; they need the money. They slowly part from Wiletta until she is left alone again. Henry comes in to keep her company and check in on her. Wiletta admits that they were divided, and so nothing will change. All she ever wanted to do was to do something grand on stage. Henry picks up the tape recorder Eddie left behind and fiddles with the fake applause. He asks her to recite a Psalm that speaks to unity. Wiletta takes center stage with dignity and strength, and recites the words. At the end, Henry plays the canned applause for her: the ghosts of the audiences who won’t see this version of her.