Playing ‘Uncle Tom’ Role Is Painful Job for Actor

The hardest moment for Lonnie Ford in “I Ain’t Yo’ Uncle” at the San Diego Repertory Theatre is his first moment on stage, when he enters as the shuffling, grinning stereotype of Uncle Tom. Though he soon throws off the demeanor and says, “I ain’t yo’ uncle,” that image is still very painful for him--and sometimes for the audience.

“Even in rehearsals, it’s extremely hard to do because I have to make myself vulnerable, and I have to answer to my community for doing this stuff,” Ford said on the phone from his hotel room. “We had a black couple walk out the first night we performed, and, if people are walking out before I get to straighten up, they walk out with that image.”

“I Ain’t Yo’ Uncle,” a San Francisco Mime Troupe production that has just been extended at the San Diego Rep through Nov. 9, is a revisionist look by African-American playwright Robert Alexander at Harriet Beecher Stowe’s classic “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” In the show, Stowe is a character challenged by the “Uncle Tom” stereotypes she created in 1852: Tom, his wife, “Aunt” Chloe (who is trying to escape from the Aunt Jemima pancake box), wicked Topsy, angry George and heroic Eliza, who escapes with her baby on the ice.

To show Stowe how wrong she was, the characters act out the scenes she wrote, but with a difference. Alexander has rewritten some of the dialogue, adding subtlety and fleshing out the anger and pain that have since traveled through generations of black lives in the United States.

That message is what makes the project worth the pain for Ford.

“This project means so much to me. It’s necessary, it’s timely. When I talk to people in discussions after the show, white people are saying, ‘Now I understand why you’re so mad at us.’ If we can accomplish that, that’s a big step.”

Ford, who turned 41 on April Fool’s Day--which, he said with a laugh, gives him “license to be like this”--is based in San Francisco. A free-lance performer-director who was a regular member of the troupe years ago, Ford said he actually identifies with Uncle Tom.

“I’ve always been an Uncle Tom. I’ve been the integrationist, I’ve been the King follower. But I always had the concept that Tom was a survivalist, always understood that Tom did what he could to stay alive.”

But, behind the scenes of this production, Ford comes off more as idealist than survivalist. He fought hard over scenes and casting; he actually quit until director Daniel Chumley agreed to cast a white actress as Miss Eva rather than an Asian actress. He took this job even though, as he says, he is making less than he would make on unemployment. Because the San Francisco Mime Troupe is financially strapped just as the San Diego Rep is, he is working as a guest artist for an unnamed figure that is less than union wage, and he receives just $20 a day for living expenses. He says he knows that he should probably find more remunerative employment--but that this show is worth the sacrifice.

“I’m paying them to do this show--no question about it. But I believe in the work, that’s the bottom line. I believe in what I’m doing, and at some point I don’t do it for money, I do it because I love it and I believe in it and I hope it will effect some change. This is what I can do under the circumstances, and if we if we all just do our parts wherever we find ourselves, then it’s all going to be all right in the morning.”

Philip Charles Sneed who just finished playing the young and exuberant inventor son of Mrs. Fisher in the Old Globe’s “The Show-Off,” which closed Sunday, tackles the very old and jaded Mephistopheles in Marlowe’s “The Tragedy of Dr. Faustus” starting tonight at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Catholic Church in San Ysidro.

The show is funded by grants from the Voluntary Fund for the Arts Grant Program of the Public Arts Advisory Council of San Diego County and the Emerging Arts Fund of the San Diego Community Foundation. Sneed and co-star Barry Mann (who plays Faustus) will travel to three churches for the show: It runs through Sunday at the San Ysidro church, where the performance is free before moving to All Souls’ Episcopal Church in Point Loma from Oct. 31-Nov. 2, with a suggested donation of $10 for adults and $5 for children (at the Halloween performance people are encouraged to come in costume). The Nov. 2 show will be an interpreted performance for the hearing impaired.

The production ends at United Methodist Church in Vista from Nov. 7-9, where the performances are free.

The goal is for community involvement in the show, and some church members are playing smaller roles.

One company’s rehearsal space is another troupe’s theater.

The UC San Diego theater department will inaugurate a new 112-seat black box theater with Sam Shepard’s “Action” Nov. 6-17.

The La Jolla Playhouse used the 2,240-square foot space, which is part of the new Mandell Weiss Forum (completed in April 1991), as a rehearsal space earlier this year. It boasts a 22-foot ceiling and 18-foot doors for loading in scenery, making it a flexible space for designers.

UCSD plans a three-play season in this new Forum Studio. The season continues with two new plays by UCSD MFA students: “Marie Why & The China Thing” by Naomi Iizuka Dec. 4-8 and “Soldier of Paradise” by Kevin Kreiger March 4-8, 1992.

PROGRAM NOTES: For those going through “Rocky Horror” withdrawal, the cast of the San Diego Rep’s “The Rocky Horror Show” will perform four musical numbers Nov. 2 at the Rep’s fund-raising gala, “Whatever Happened to Saturday Night,” at the Hotel del Coronado . . . .

Paul James Kruse, who plays the one-eyed husband in “Abundance” at Blackfriars (formerly known as the Bowery Theatre) through Nov. 17, has just taken on a new role at the theater. Kruse is the new associate producer, replacing Mickey Mullany, who left to work as a free-lance actress and director . . . .

Sixth District City Council candidate Valerie Stallings and incumbent Councilman Bruce Henderson will present their views on San Diego’s role in arts and culture at a 5:30 p.m. forum Friday at the Lyceum Theatre in Horton Plaza. Dan Erwine of KPBS Radio will moderate.