By Chuck Graham, TucsonStage.com
Arizona Theatre Company photo
Candace Thomas projects the anger of Nina Simone.
Nina Simone was a fighter. She was also a singer, a songwriter and accomplished classical pianist. But it was the power of her personality as a fighter for the black power movement during the tumultuous 1960s that concerns playwright Christina Ham in her history lesson accompanied by timely music, “Nina Simone: Four Women,” which Arizona Theatre Company has opened at the downtown Temple of Music and Art.
The four women are Simone (Candace Thomas) plus three females of differing backgrounds: Sarah (Deidra Grace), a religious conservative who makes her living as a housekeeper; Sephronia (Katya Collazo), a lightly-complected African American activist the other three believe is more accepted in the white community; and Sweet Thing (Kia Dawn Fulton), held in low regard for her choice to be a professional sex worker during that time when women in her profession were called “prostitutes.”
Simone, a successful entertainer, insists on using her spotlight platform to demand social change and equal rights for them all. She is angry, indignant and proud of it.
The play is set against the hateful bombing on Sept. 15, 1963, of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, in which four young black girls were killed.
For the entire 100-minute production, directed by Tiffany Nichole Greene and performed without intermission, Simone moves among these twisted ruins of the church. She becomes a beacon of determination standing alone in the havoc of this chaos, designed by Arnel Sancianco to depict the piles of a destroyed dream, collapsed faith and lost hope.
The only piece of furniture left standing is an undamaged upright piano at the back of the stage. Seated there, facing the keyboard with his back to the audience, is pianist Sam Waymon (Dante Harrell).
To move the piece along, Simone has come to this church to seek some bitter inspiration for the words to a new song, struggling to control the fierceness of her response to the senseless deaths of these children and the destruction of their church. She is working on the lyrics for what will become her protest song “Mississippi Goddam.” Every phrase, every line, is a victory snatched out of her own clench-jawed rage.
Sarah is first of the three women to step out of the shadows, already skeptical of Simone's intentions, doubtful that any of the singer's high profile posturing will do any good.
Then we meet Sephronia, the modern progressive one. In tune with the times, but also aware her lighter skin tone makes other African Americans suspicious of her success.
Both Sarah and Sephronia are doubtful that Simone's gutsy determination will make any difference. They believe fighting back is hopeless. Simone insists fighting back is their only hope.
Stepping into the fray, adding another layer of dispute is Sweet Thing, saucy and full of disrespect. Her life has been nothing like the others. Raw and overrun with disappointment, the truth in Sweet Thing's world might as well be coming from another planet.
Unlike any of the others, the violence in Sweet Thing's experience has always been up close and personal. So she packs a switchblade knife in her purse to make her point.
While Simone is always at the center of this turmoil, each of the other women has a key scene to leave her mark. And as they do, punch by punch, the tension builds.
Resolution arrives in a stunning staging of Simone's iconic classic, “Four Women,” with lyrics describing the tangled roots of struggling souls in troublesome times, growing stronger together a defiant blend of deep nutrition merging above ground to create a stronger tree of unity, power and purpose.
“Nina Simone: Four Women” runs through March 19 at the Temple of Music and Art, 330 S. Scott Ave. Performances are at various times, Wednesdays-Sundays. Tickets are $40-$73, online at arizonatheatre.org or by calling 833-282-7328.
Full COVID protocols are presently in effect. For the latest information, arizonatheatre.org
