by Martin Denton
May 12, 2002

Canada Lee is not exactly a famous name, but, as Mona Z. Smith's fine new play Becoming Something illuminates, it should be. His story is a piece of African-American history that is absolutely worth telling and remembering and—it is hoped—learning from. He was born in New York in 1907 and started out to be a violinist, until he noticed that all of the faces in symphony orchestras in the 1920s were white. Then he became a jockey, and, after that, a boxer, at which he achieved notable success, to the point where he almost fought the reigning white champ. During the Great Depression, Lee's life was tougher, including a stint as the owner of a fried chicken restaurant at one point. And then, in 1937, he was hired by the very young Orson Welles to appear in an all-Negro production of Macbeth under the auspices of the WPA. And his life changed.

Canada Lee was, it turned out, a natural actor. After Macbeth came the title role in Native Son on Broadway, a part in Alfred Hitchcock's war film Lifeboat, and, somewhat controversially, the lead in The Duchess of Malfi, for which he became the first black man to appear as a white character (in whiteface) on the American stage.

As his fame grew, so did his outspokenness about the way he and his fellow African-Americans were being let down by the United States. Lee was appalled that black men fighting for democracy in Europe and Asia were being denied equality here at home, and he was principled enough to use his position to call attention to the problem. This put him closer than was strictly safe to radical groups that, after World War II, became the subject of inquiry by the FBI for their supposed Communist ties; or perhaps just speaking out about institutionalized racism was enough to land Canada Lee on the blacklist—playwright Smith is inconclusive on this point. Inevitably, Lee wound up one of McCarthyism's earliest and saddest casualties. He was unable to work in the United States during the final three or four years of his life; he died of a broken heart (literally and metaphorically) at 45 years of age.

Smith recognizes that Lee's life really is the stuff of tragedy: she has him quote from Othello liberally throughout the play, though ironically that role was one he never got to play. Like Othello, Lee possessed a tragic flaw—an obstinate pride that allowed him to do perilous things like speak out at rallies, put on whiteface makeup (offending lots of people, black and white), and take on a powerful former friend like the journalist Ed Sullivan, who ultimately betrayed him. Lee's hubris brought him down as surely as Oedipus's, which is why Becoming Something is so potent and stirring.

Smith, with director Traci Mariano, tells the story sparely and fluidly, with five main actors (as Lee, his brother, his two wives, and his nemesis Sullivan) plus three more cast as "dead files," the characters both anonymous and famous who filled out Lee's biography. It's a very effective, theatrical technique; another conceit, in which key ideas from the narrative are printed on signs and papers that cover the walls of the stage works less well (and is pretty much abandoned in the play's second act).

The company is exemplary, with Johnny Kitt anchoring the play powerfully as an all-too-human Lee, at once heroic and fatally flawed. Anitra Brooks is hauntingly effective as Lee's first wife Juanita, while Beth Lein does solid work as the more sketchily-drawn second wife Frances. Michael Craig Patterson is fine as Canada's ne'er-do-well brother Lovey, while Christopher Wisner is excellent as the stalwart but ultimately hypocritical Ed Sullivan (smartly eschewing any attempt at impersonation, I might add). Patrick Riviere, Paschal Frisina III, and Sheila Lewandowski exhibit remarkable versatility and skill in literally dozens of roles: some that stand out in my mind are Riviere's dead-on Richard Nixon, Frisina's nervy Irish prizefighter Jimmy, and Lewandowski's wonderfully addled FBI employee-turned-spy Judy Coplon.

Becoming Something manages to be both entertaining and immensely informative, which doesn't happen nearly often enough in the theatre. I learned a lot about Canada Lee, someone I knew almost nothing about, whose life story continues to have tremendous relevance even fifty years after it ended.