Stage : ‘Rickey’ a Dramatic Meeting

In “Mr. Rickey Calls a Meeting,” at the Old Globe’s Cassius Carter Centre Stage, playwright Ed Schmidt calls forth more than just a 45-year-old meeting that never really happened.

He creates a debate that resounds with the racial issues of 1992. If you can ignore Schmidt’s tinkering with the historical record, this extended one-act is a powerful excursion into questions of racial empowerment that stick with us.

Schmidt pits Branch Rickey (Arlen Dean Snyder), the baseball executive who broke the color line of his sport by bringing Jackie Robinson to the Brooklyn Dodgers, against Paul Robeson (Willie C. Carpenter), the radical actor/singer.

Robeson questions whether a white man’s consent to allow one black into the club is worth the loss of jobs and black ownership in the segregated Negro Leagues that will result. And he challenges Robinson’s agreement to turn the other cheek for at least three years, in return for being able to stick his foot in the white man’s door.

Caught between Rickey and Robeson are Robinson himself (Sterling Macer Jr.) and two other guests in Rickey’s New York hotel room: Heavyweight champion Joe Louis (Ron Canada) and the aged Bill (Mr. Bojangles) Robinson (Nick LaTour), who is said to have an ownership stake in one of the Negro League clubs.

Schmidt may be his own best critic. In a page of notes he wrote for the program, he states immediately that “this meeting never took place.” Among other historical discrepancies, he admits that the real Rickey would never have included the real Robeson in any such deliberations and that he had to invent a motive for the characters to get together.

So his Rickey tells his guests that he needs their help in his bid to make Jackie Robinson a Dodger. What he doesn’t tell them is that he plans on making the big announcement today and that he hopes they’ll all pledge their support in front of the reporters who have gathered downstairs.

It’s not a completely successful setup. Even if Rickey were to call such a meeting, why would he limit his appeal to three celebrities who happen to remain well-known today? He surely would have invited a broader base of politicians, ministers, entrepreneurs, educators and other black leaders.

In fact, the real Rickey did call such a meeting on Feb. 5, 1947, where he addressed a gathering of black leaders at a Brooklyn YMCA. Instead of asking them to express their support, he requested that they restrain the enthusiasm of the black masses for his upcoming announcement of Robinson’s ascent. At least one of the journalists who later reported on the meeting was offended at Rickey’s remarks, believing that they implied that blacks wouldn’t know how to behave themselves at the ballpark.

One wonders why Schmidt didn’t consider these facts to be dramatic enough, why he felt compelled to make up his own meeting, whether everyone will read the program notes, or whether future productions will always print them.

However, if you can accept Schmidt’s apparent decision that a smaller meeting focusing on well-known black celebrities would be more stageworthy, there is something to be said for the spectacle of seeing Robeson, Louis and the two Robinsons in one small room together. Furthermore, Robeson provides the necessary nettle that irritates the proceedings enough to ignite the drama.

Right now, at any rate, it’s hard to listen to Robeson’s arguments here without thinking of Rodney King’s dependence on white authority figures. And when Robeson talks about the importance of black ownership of black institutions, other recent images come to mind.

Yet, current events aside, and disregarding a moment of minor confusion regarding who’s sending whom out of the room and why, the play flexes real dramatic muscle. And it helps that it’s framed as a memory from the perspective of the only non-celebrity in the room, bellboy Clancy Hope (Jeremiah Wayne Birkett). This gently breaks up the polemics, especially as Hope narrates the fate of the characters at the end.

In Sheldon Epps’ sensitively tuned-in staging, the impact isn’t just from the words, either. Look at Canada’s performance of Joe Louis. Here is the one black who has already climbed to the top of the cross-racial sports world, yet his hulking posture, tormented face and distracted glances reveal the price he has paid.

One wonders if the same fate is in store for young Jackie Robinson. Already, by giving the rookie a case of the runs--owing to the Cuban food he ate during spring training--Schmidt dampens the young man’s natural ebullience with stiff gestures and pained looks that provide a preview of the ordeal that awaits him.

“Mr. Rickey Calls a Meeting,” Cassius Carter Centre Stage, Balboa Park, San Diego. Tuesdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m., Sundays, 7 p.m., Saturday-Sunday matinees, 2 p.m. Ends June 21. $22-29.50. (619) 239-2255. Running time: 1 hour, 55 minutes.

Jeremiah Wayne Birkett: Clancy Hope

Arlen Dean Snyder: Branch Rickey

Sterling Macer Jr.: Jackie Robinson

Ron Canada: Joe Louis

Willie C. Carpenter: Paul Robeson

Nick LaTour: Bill (Bojangles) Robinson

By Ed Schmidt. Directed by Sheldon Epps. Set by Ralph Funicello. Costumes by Christina Haatainen. Lights by Barth Ballard. Sound by Jeff Ladman. Stage manager Jerome J. Sheehan.