Sisters’ ‘Say’ on love, prejudice

Listening to the Delany Sisters, the stars of “Having Our Say,” now playing at the International City Theatre, is a radical education in democracy by the nicest church ladies ever to bake a pound cake. Named in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s oldest authors -- their first memoir appeared when Sadie was 104 and Bessie 102 -- the African American sisters were strong-talking, protest-walking vessels of America’s divisive 20th century.

Director-playwright Emily Mann adapted the Delanys’ story from their 1992 bestselling book and additional interviews. Mann’s two-hander is not so much a play as a staged scrapbook of a family whose extraordinary history represents much of America’s best -- but encountered most of this country’s race-obsessed worst.

On Don Llewellyn’s tidy set, the ladies invite us into their Mt. Vernon, N.Y., apartment, offer us a seat and show family photos (slides projected on walls).

And what a family. Their striking paternal grandmother had Native American blood; their maternal grandmother could not marry her white companion -- it was illegal to do so in Virginia until 1967 -- but they remained together for 50 years. Their brilliant mother was so light-skinned she could have passed for white, but never did.

The family’s real fate, however, was determined by the owners of their father, born a slave in Georgia. This time a state law was broken, and young Henry Beard Delany was taught to read and write. Eventually he became the first elected black bishop in the Episcopal Church of America.

The visual and emotional reality of the Delanys’ complicated, liberating genealogy is the evening’s most memorable aspect. But there are also stories of infuriating everyday prejudice and real danger.

Most of the show follows the sisters’ lives in New York, where they moved in their mid-20s to take up professions (Sadie, a teacher; Bessie, a dentist). While the show more or less runs chronologically, “Having Our Say” often feels too episodic. There are gems -- Bessie objecting to the showing of Cecil B. DeMille’s “The Birth of a Nation” and then missing a protest that she organized -- but we hear a little about a lot of things when a deeper discussion on fewer subjects might have been more satisfying.

Amentha Dymally makes a lovely Sadie, capturing the wide-eyed, lost little girl who remains attached to her mother well into her own golden years.

And Robin Braxton’s Bessie brings a sharp sense of comic timing, lending the show the bit of edge it needs.

Although director Shashin Desai’s production has an easy charm, it can drift toward a pace perhaps a bit too leisurely, even for a pair of centenarians. After all, these women practiced yoga daily -- they started doing so in their 80s.

There are tantalizing clues to a more complicated inner life for both sisters: Why did neither marry? Why did neither want children? But, like so many of the details of intimate life for this earlier generation, black or white, their private choices remain just that.

“Some people grieve to remember,” says Sadie. “But we celebrate.”

And in the end, like the good meal around the family table that the sisters prepare during the show, “Having Our Say” quietly exults the virtues of courageous civility, enduring love and just sticking together.

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‘Having Our Say’

Where: International City Theatre, Long Beach Performing Arts Center, 300 E. Ocean Blvd.,

Long Beach

When: 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays

Ends: May 20

Price: $32 to $42

Contact: (562) 436-4610; or www.ictlongbeach.org

Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes