Fear of a black-man label

LAST CALL. Moxie Theatre’s excellent production of Tanya Barfield’s Blue Door must close this Sunday. It’s said Moxie is a “women-centered” theater. That’s not completely true. Here’s an exception.

In Leo Tolstoy’s novella The Death of Ivan Illych, the title character lives a life that’s “most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible.” He tried to fit in, to go along, and tried not to admit that his wife was too demanding and his job — where he put all his energy — too unfulfilling. On his death bed he has a revelation: every move he ever made was false, artificial, programmed by others. He never once dared to be his authentic self.

In Blue Door, Lewis has trod a similar path. An African-American, he has tried every way possible to deny his roots: fought against a stereotype by marrying a white woman and became a hotshot mathematician at a prestigious university. That’s the image he always wanted. A rational mind — maybe even a genius about the mysteries of time and non-linearity — standing tall above the fray.

But white professors at the university haven’t quite accepted him. He’s more a safe token of an integrated faculty than a colleague. And now, after 25 years, his wife wants a divorce because he won’t go on the Million Man March in Washington DC (it’s 1995). That would label him as a black man. Also, she says something vague about housekeeping that’s been on her mind for nine or ten years.

The only good news: unlike Ivan Illych, Lewis isn’t on his death bed. He might as well be, though. His carefully cultivated, decades-in-the making image just crashed and burned.

During a dark night of the soul — a “ten-year night” — his ancestors come to call. They tell stories of slavery, horrific abuse, convictions for ridiculous crimes (one spent ten years in prison for trespassing in a white church), and relentless injustice. This is the past Lewis fought to forget.

But other traits emerge from the stories: courage, resilience, a shared authenticity. In August Wilson’s Fences, ex–baseball star Troy Maxson looks back on his life and says you must take the bad with the good, the “crookeds with the straights.” Lewis’s ancestors teach a similar lesson.

Playing through March 5