‘Man’ Offers a Striking Look at ‘60s Grass-Roots Leader

“I Am a Man” was the slogan on the placards of some of the municipal workers who went on strike in Memphis in early 1968--an event best known today because it brought the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to Memphis, where he was assassinated.

It’s also the title of a richly layered drama about the grass-roots leader of that strike, T.O. Jones. OyamO’s play is at the Fountain Theatre, staged by Anthony J. Haney.

Within the play, the slogan has a double meaning--a heroic interpretation in which Jones and the garbage collectors who support him declare their humanity for all it’s worth, and a more subtle slant in which playwright OyamO reminds us that to err is human, too.

Jones (William Taylor) is depicted as a natural leader by virtue of his warmth toward his colleagues, his untutored but eloquent speaking style, his dogged persistence. But sometimes his passions overtake his smarts, or he’s susceptible to others’ unwise suggestions. Sometimes he neglects his family. At the end, he has bittersweet feelings about what has and hasn’t been accomplished. It’s a complex role, played with tremendous authority by Taylor.

Surrounding Jones are a collection of people with clashing agendas. The national union leaders, white and black (Howard S. Miller and Ronn Jerard, respectively), as well as an NAACP representative (Kelly Taffe), are deeply suspicious of the young black-power advocates who offer to serve as Jones’ bodyguards (Gregory Storm, Al Garrett)--and vice versa. Local ministers range from friendly allies, black and white (John Wesley, Matt K. Miller, respectively) to disdainful snobs (Corey Joseph Taylor). Criticizing from the sidelines is Jones’ estranged wife (Rita Cooper).

The leader of the opposition is a condescending bantam cock of a mayor (Joe Barnaba) and an insensitive police chief (Robert Schuch). Yet even within their office is a dissenter, an attorney (Matt K. Miller, again) who’s moving toward the strikers’ side.

In other words, OyamO steers his play away from primary colors to paint a more detailed vision of the entire landscape. The production includes a wide variety of slides, designed by Evan Mower, that intermittently offer a look at the environment and era in which the play is set, as well as the actual events themselves.

It also includes musical accents by a Bluesman (Kevin E. Jones) that convey the sound of that period (although a device in which this same Bluesman offers the first few lines of speeches by many different characters before the other actor takes over seems artificially artsy).

Despite his wide-angle view, however, OyamO realized he wasn’t writing a book about the strike--that was done in 1985 with Joan Turner Beifuss’ nonfictional “At the River I Stand,” which was also the title of a documentary on the subject, seen on PBS in 1993. OyamO wrote in the program that “the play isn’t intended as history but rather an impression of that history. Many liberties are taken, but I was faithful to what I discerned as the essence of the ‘truth’ of what happened to Jones. . . .”

In one example of these liberties, the play’s account of an incident in which two garbage workers were killed by a malfunction on their truck differs notably from the version in Beifuss’ book, apparently in an attempt by OyamO to underline the city’s racial divide more starkly.

Nonetheless, OyamO normally uses his dramatic license not for polemical points but rather to focus attention on the character of Jones. And this is a savvy choice, for Jones--in all his rigorously balanced humanity--is an ideal surrogate as we look behind the headlines of one of the most dramatic turning points in recent American history.

* “I Am a Man,” Fountain Theatre, 5060 Fountain Ave., Hollywood. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m., plus 3 p.m. shows this Sunday and March 17. Ends March 30. $18-$22. (213) 663-1525. Running time: 2 hours, 45 minutes.