Parallel Lives
Parallel Lives
By Beverly Coyle and Bill Maxwell
Directed by Jerry Klein
Starring Peg O’Keefe and Joe Reed
Seminole Community College, Lake Mary, FL</strong>
Of the dozens of threads that make the warp and weft of American life, Racism is the one we always can pick out, no matter how much Clorox we pour on it. The topic gets revisited endlessly, from August Wilson to Spike Lee, and the same answer always floats to the surface – its bad, we hate it, and it ain’t going away anytime soon. Perhaps a few more generations will eliminate the KKK and the “those People” mentality, or perhaps new groups will fill these roles. Still, everyone has a story, and the collected memories of authors Coyle and Maxwell are as good as introduction as you will find to the history of race relations in Florida. While most of us live in the HOA and golf courses vision of central Florida, it wasn’t so long ago this was the “Lynching Belt” where a black man could be summarily shot by the simple statement “He raped a white woman.”
The genesis of Parallel Lives was a commission for two essays on the authors respective Coming of Age in the last days of Jim Crow. Bev Coyle grew up barley recognizing blacks existed while Maxwell suffered abuse that would make the Columbine shooting look like mild retributions. Pressed together by a state grant agency, their relation begins on a sour note – Coyle describes a minstrel show she wasn’t allowed to see, and Maxwell fumes about being the state’s token Black History Month speaker of choice. As the tour chugs along, we cover every aspect of race relations from lynching to poor service in fancy restaurants. It’s all been said before, but begs saying again, and the eloquence of these particular voices makes the story fresh and invigorating.
This high-fiber story is interesting on two levels – the stories move along briskly, and the author studiously keeps anything resembling a romance from flaring up. There are hints, certainly, but by the end Coyle and Maxwell part with a collegiate relation that carefully sidesteps any sexual tension. We’re not necessarily looking for a forbidden kiss, but the careful edited edges leave the question in the air – is interracial dating still a taboo, even on an enlighten Florida stage?
For more information on the Seminole Community College Theater program, please visit http://www.scc-fl.edu/arts/theatre/
