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SOUTHERN VOICE
OCTOBER 7/1993
Thomas and Hill, together again
7 Stages’ “Unquestioned Integrity” revisits hearings
Two years ago, the weekend mesmerized
America. Anita Hill versus Clarence Thomas.
He said, she said. Long Dong Silver and high-
tech lynching. Pubic hairs on cans of Coke and
talk of a woman scorned. The country divided
into two camps—he lied or she lied.
Thomas is on the Supreme Court. Hill is a
well-respected lecturer on the subject of sexual
harassment. And the country is now more aware
than ever that
Unquestioned
Integrity
through Oct. 24
at 7 Stages,
1105 Euclid Ave.
in Little 5 Points.
Call 523-7647.
women (and men)
can be subjected to
sexual harassment in
the workplace.
Playwright
Marne Hunt has de
cided to revisit this
moment in Ameri
can history in her
new work, “Unques
tioned Integrity: The Hill/Thomas Hearings,”
which is now playing at 7 Stages. The work is a
compilation of text from the Senate Judiciary
Committee hearings that we saw unfold on our
television screens. The most important of the
major players are there: Anita Hill (Marsha A.
Jackson), cool, calm, collected, clear-headed and
forthright; Clarence Thomas (Ron Himes), furi
ous, invigorated, stentorian and fulminating; and
the Senate committee, represented here by an
amalgam referred to only as Senator (Del
Hamilton).
In “Unquestioned Integrity,” even the audi
ence gets to participate. A facilitator (Diane Sell
ers) runs through the audience, Oprah-like, to
get people to say controversial things about the
hearings as they are seeing them unfold.
It’s all very interesting, but is it theater? The
televised hearings were wildly dramatic. Who
can forget the steady, calm Anita Hill discours
ing on subjects we never thought would be
broached on the tube, or forget Clarence Tho
mas denouncing the hearings as a “high tech
lynching?” It was history, happening in front of
us, and we were all willing spectators to the
blood and gore.
However, the playwright has added noth
ing—no point of view, no insight, no 20/20
hindsight—to give us a reason for this play. She
has crafted the actual transcripts into a working
script, but it is not a play. Watching “talking
heads” on television provides a certain dramatic
tension of its own. Watching it in a theater is
tiresome. Even breaking up the hearings with
the facilitator running through the audience does
not mask the fact that we are merely watching a
recreation of the hearings, not a reinterpretation.
There is a great danger in putting “hearings”
on a stage, and that danger is that they may not
be dramatically moving or appealing. “Unques
tioned Integrity” offers no insight—the play
wright has made no choices nor taken any sides.
All she has done is present us with a “Greatest
Moments of the Hill/Thomas Hearings” play,
something you’d almost expect to be hawked on
TBS (“Now, while supplies last, you can own
the great moments of the hearings that changed
history! Only $19.95 on your Visa or
Mastercard!”).
Worse, combining the varied, and unques
Ron Himes, as Clarence Thomas, and Marsha Jackson, as Anita Hill, face off in a play
based on their infamous Senate Judiciary Committee testimony.
tionably unique, personalities of the members of
the committee into one bland senator further
serves to reduce dramatic impact. Without hav
ing Arlen Specter and Alan Simpson to jeer at,
and without having Kennedy to laugh about, we
have only Hill and Thomas. While they are both
highly intelligent, they are not the epitome of
spariding personalities.
Marsha A. Jackson manages to perfectly cap
ture the calm demeanor of Anita Hill. She clearly
has studied the tapes and found the essence of
this woman. Ron Himes embodies the fury and
bluster of Clarence Thomas in an over-the-top
performance (but Thomas was over the top him
self at the hearings). Del Hamilton spends most
of his time on stage looking confused, sort of
like he’s wondering which senator he’s sup
posed to be at any given moment. Diane Sellers
provides the only lively moments of the evening
as the facilitator.
Director Andre Frye has tried to infuse some
tension in the proceedings, but at every turn
she’s defeated by the script. And she makes one
truly confusing choice. Often during the pro
ceedings, we see the participants turning around
to talk to attorneys or staff members who we’re
supposed to believe are there.
Yes, that is what may have happened at that
moment in the hearings, but on stage, it only
serves to point out how much of a vacuum this
play operates in. The total atmosphere of pages,
aides, lawyers, spectators, cameras, reporters and
klieg lights is missing. The words are there, but
the feeling is gone. When any of the actors turns
to an imaginary person, it only serves to remind
us how much we miss the environment we saw
on television.
MICHAEL KAPE
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