APRIL 7, 1995 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

EVENINGS OUT

When the news of a family member's AIDS hits home

by Barry Daniels

Cheryl West's controversial drama Before It Hits Home deals with AIDS in the African-American community. The play's protagonist, Wendal Bailey, is a bisexual jazz musician who has been diagnosed as having AIDS. How Wendal, his lovers Douglass and Simone, and his family-who

person, then we've won. It is time for the black community to acknowledge that there is a problem and that somebody has to do something."

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People from the AIDS Taskforce of Cleveland have been meeting with the production staff to help put together panel discussions that will be held after most performances. Shields notes, "We were talking about religion and how the pastors and reverends of our community deal with the issue of AIDS. If the black church is going to stand on the premise of ignorance of what the disease is, and to be judgmental as to who gets AIDS and why they get it, instead of going out and helping people and educating people, I don't know what is going to happen to us all."

Shields asserts that the situation of Before It Hits Home is universal. "What the play is telling us," he says, "is AIDS affects everyone. It could be a gay person, or a heterosexual person, or somebody that got the disease through a blood transfusion. It really doesn't matter. When it hits home, and the home is not ready for it, you have the same kind of problem the play deals with."

In re-reading the play, I was struck by the brave way in which West portrays the relationship between Wendal and Douglass. Both men are in a situation where, because of community pressure, they are forced to lead double lives and deeply closet an important part of their selves. The damage this does to each of them, and to those close to them, is poignant and real.

Douglass (Doug Jewel) talks with a nurse (Linda Browning) while admitting his lover Wendal (Anthony Nickerson) to a hospital.

know almost nothing about Wendal's life— deal with the situation of his illness makes for powerful theatre.

Cleveland is familiar with West's work from the Cleveland Play House productions of Jar the Floor and Holiday Heart. The Karamu Performing Arts Theatre will be opening a production of Before it Hits Home starting on April 7.

I met with the production's director, Dale Ricardo Shields, to discuss the play. Shields, a native Clevelander and Karamu House alum, has worked as an actor, director and writer in New York City for almost 19 years. He is completing an internship at the Play House as the final requirement for his MFA degree from Ohio University, and has recently accepted a position as assistant professor of theatre at Wooster College.

Speaking passionately about the production, Shields said, "There are a lot of people who-unfortunately-still have their heads in the sand about the AIDS epidemic. I could understand that, if people weren't dying. I don't care what controversy the play brings up. If we can grab one person who is ignorant of AIDS and didn't have enough information to know what to do, and educate that

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Shields stresses that the statement he wants to make with production is that "We are in crisis... and our only hope is to battle it with education, unconditional love and hope." He continues, "People are dying. We've got to band together as a group-be it theatre, be it church, be it the streets. We need more research, more understanding of what we are dealing with, truth from the government, help from the government, money for research. We need to band together finally as a nation, and not divide up into these small groups. It's here. It's landed. We're in crisis. There is nothing to do but act."

Before It Hits Home will be performed April 7-30, Thursday-Saturday at 8 pm, Sunday at 3 pm in the Arena Theatre at Karamu House, 2355 East 89th St. at Quincy Ave. Tickets are $10 on Thursday and Sunday, $12 on Friday and Saturday. For reservations and information about panel discussions telephone 216-795-7077. On April 27, there will be a staged reading for high school students of Shields' play In Time, which views AIDS from the perspective of a multicultural group of adolescents.

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