‘Second Line’

Seret Scott’s new play makes its world premiere at Passage Theatre.

By: Stuart Duncan
   Seret Scott is a sometime actress and playwright, but is best known for directing at major regional theaters across the U.S. For her latest play, Second Line, which she wrote, she has handed the directing task to Regge Life. Passage Theatre is presenting the world premiere of Second Line at Mill Hill Playhouse in Trenton.
   The project has been in development for three years, but it is apt to remind audiences of an early A.R. Gurney play, Love Letters. The plot follows two middle class African-American students from their college days at the University of Pennsylvania in the 1960s and for 19 years onward. Bennie and JoJo seem to be very much in love, but they rather deliberately choose to face the challenges of the era’s civil rights movement in widely different ways. He stays in school to achieve the degree denied to his family before him; she leaves to go south as a volunteer to register voters, and later goes to Vietnam, again as a volunteer social worker to attempt to comfort orphaned children.
   In her 75-minute work, Ms. Scott balances eloquent soliloquies with intense meetings between the two, still desperately in love but far too dedicated to individual pursuits to satisfy it. They meet about every decade for just enough time to bring each other (and the audience) up to date. Bennie says: "I can handle anything, but I can’t handle the memories." And, during the process, we get a bird’s-eye view of the civil rights movement as it wends its stormy way through the ’70s and into the early ’80s.
   The two actors, Billy Eugene Jones and April Yvette Thompson, are nothing short of sensational. They play beautifully together, especially in the early scenes in college, frisky and energetic. Then each takes on a somewhat more serious tone as each matures. It is a familiar story, told with simplicity, but given real depth by these two.
   A word about the title: "The Second Line" is a term with African and religious roots that refers to the march from church to gravesite. At the church, musicians play religious hymns such as "Just a Closer Walk with Thee," in strict, non-improvisational fashion. After the church service, the bandleader directs the procession away without playing music, then, after reaching a respectful distance, begins to play jazz. The band’s dignified grand marshal — wearing white gloves, black tuxedo, black hat and holding an umbrella — initiates a march into the street of the town. A "second line" of spectators joins the procession, animated, dancing, strutting, clapping, hollering and generally "appeasing" the spirit of the deceased.
   I’m not entirely sure what Ms. Scott had in mind as it applies to her play, but make your own connection.
Second Line continues at Mill Hill Playhouse, Front and Montgomery streets, Trenton, through Oct. 29. Performances: Thurs.-Sat. 8 p.m., Sun. 3 p.m. Tickets cost $25. For information, call (609) 392-0766. On the Web: www.passagetheatre.org