I’ve joined the Black Panthers. At least I think I have. I took part in an induction ceremony at the start of Messiah at Stratford Circus. ‘Stand up,’ said the actor Shaq B. Grant to the predominantly white crowd. ‘Raise your right fist and repeat after me: “I am a revolutionary.”’ Everyone obeyed and chanted his mantra, some with more sincerity than others. Then the show began.
The subject is a notorious police raid on a Panther hideout in Chicago in 1969 which resulted in the death of Fred Hampton, a 21-year-old activist nicknamed ‘the Black Messiah’. The police alleged that the Panthers opened fire first. The Panthers claimed that Hampton sustained survivable wounds during the raid and was later executed by unnamed police officers. These controversies are examined in the play, which was ‘devised by Bear Trap Theatre’ using a script co-written by Jesse Briton and Paula B. Stanic.
It seems that many hands — perhaps too many — were involved in creating a show that encompasses several incompatible genres.
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