"The segregationists and racists," said Martin Luther King, "make no fine distinction between the Negro and the Jew." And in fact, for much of 20th-century history, African-Americans and Jews understood themselves to be natural allies. Black newspapers were among the first in America to condemn the rise of Nazism, and Jews figured pivotally in the founding of the NAACP and the Urban League. More than half of the whites who went to Mississippi in 1964 to fight for civil rights were Jewish, as were Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, murdered infamously by the Klan along with black James Chaney in that same year. One might have guessed in the mid-1960s that these two ethnic groups, both of which felt the weight of long oppression, would always make a common cause.
But matters weren't that simple. As the Black Power movement grew, some African-Americans tried to shake off what they saw as Jewish paternalism. Meanwhile, Jews found anti-Semitism in figures like Louis Farrakhan and wondered why more blacks didn't denounce this controversial figure. The Crown Heights riots of 1991 inflamed passions on both sides, and Jewish Zionists were concerned when black spokespeople didn't seem to always share their understanding of the Palestinian issue. The longtime marriage of blacks and Jews didn't end in divorce — there were far too many shared values for that — but it became difficult and confusing. Exactly who was on whose side? And how trustworthy was the commitment?
Soul Sisters is a play that attempts to address this situation, and if it's not ultimately convincing, at least it manages to dramatize some of the forces that have shaped black-Jewish relations over the last 40 years. A co-production of the Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe and Sarasota Jewish Theater, it follows the careers of two singers over several decades, beginning in the 1960s. Of course, one of them — Rita Mazer as Sandra — is Jewish and one — Apphia Campbell as Cleo — is African-American; and sure enough, they move from dear friendship to tense hostility and then back to at least the possibility of camaraderie.
Along the way, they offer songs by Billie Holiday and George Gershwin, as well as a couple of new tunes written just for this event. Both actress-singers are talented (though both have trouble with high notes) and the text, by Joanne Koch and Sarah Blacher Cohen, is a little bit more intelligent than the books of most musicals. If Soul Sisters has a serious flaw, it's that its allegory breaks down somewhere in Act 2, when Sandra finds a new cause in Yiddish and Israeli music and Cleo moves on to a stardom untroubled by racism.
But American Jews haven't returned en masse to their roots, and Cleo's stardom is no metaphor for the plight of African-Americans in a still-racist U.S. As for the reconciliation of the two women as the musical reaches its close — well, let's just say that, where the entertainment industry is concerned, nothing so irrelevant as reality ever impeded a happy ending.
Much of the musical feels real enough, though. It's the '60s and Sandra, a white woman committed to black causes, is about to appear at a rally with Harry Belafonte and Sidney Poitier. Drinking at the Club Alabama — Sandra, we'll learn, is a borderline alcoholic — she meets waitress Cleo and asks her to become her personal assistant. Cleo happily takes the job and shortly thereafter Stanley, Sandra's manager, discovers that Cleo herself has a fine singing voice. When a civil rights benefit committee insists on having an all-black roster of entertainers, Stanley taps Cleo to take Sandra's place. Cleo's a great success and angry Sandra begins a downward spiral into small clubs and obscurity. But eventually, Sandra redefines herself as a singer, changes her name back to Levitzky (from Langley) and gives up her black repertoire in favor of Yiddish and Hebrew songs.
Meanwhile, soaring Cleo investigates her own roots in Africa. Will these two former friends, now clearer than ever on their identities and responsibilities, ever sing together again? As the '60s fade further into history, will the black-Jewish unity of the civil rights era ever be reforged?
Because both actresses give real dimension to their characters, the musical usually works on more than one level. Mazer as Sandra is particularly convincing: She's a decisive, assertive woman who's not afraid of a fight and who knows — or thinks she knows — what causes are worthy of her contribution. Mazer's particularly moving when she sings, in the original Yiddish, the Holocaust resistance song "Never Say That You're Going Your Last Way."
Campbell as Cleo offers a convincing interpretation of a woman who never had any intention of becoming a star, and who, even at her apogee, remains human and self-critical. But especially in Act 1, Campbell has the distracting tendency to deliver her lines as much to the audience as to Mazer — a habit that we can almost forget when we hear her fine renditions of "Strange Fruit" and the original "Talk is Cheap."
Only Leonard A. Rubinstein as Stanley seems out of place in this production: He comes across as the stereotype of everyone's favorite Jewish uncle, the one who grew up on chicken soup and gefilte fish and who always has a couple of exceedingly innocent jokes he's just got to tell you.
Nate Jacobs' direction is deft and efficient, and Vicki Smalls' costumes are nicely emblematic, especially when Cleo starts taking her African heritage seriously. There's not much of a set — a bare stage on which a few key furnishings are brought on and off — and one troublesome item is a strangely angled screen, high up and back behind the stage, on which slides are projected, telling us the year or illustrating some theme. Partially hidden from the audience, it makes you wonder if indeed you're supposed to notice it at all.
Still, you can't help but notice that Soul Sisters, for all its ultimate weakness as social commentary, features some of the most moving songs ever written. In addition to those I've already mentioned, there are "God Bless The Child," "Am I Blue," "Miss Otis Regrets," "Jerusalem of Gold" and several others. Authors Koch and Cohen may not finally know what to do with their lead characters, but their taste in music is impeccable. I would have enjoyed hearing these classics again, whatever their context.
So the play won't revolutionize your socio-political consciousness. So it doesn't solve the black-Jewish relationship in two short acts.
Still, the intentions are pristine. And the music is lovely.
And that's reason enough to see Soul Sisters.
This article appears in Nov 15-21, 2006.