Trial Of One Short-Sighted Black Woman, The
by Karani Marcia Leslie

"...this often funny but deeply serious trial...

Using the combative rhetoric of a trial, Ms Leslie lays out an argument that if black people do not explore their own history, or if they replace the reality with film and television images, they will lose the strength that has allowed them to survive in a hostile world...Ms Leslie, whose language is touched by a poetic gift, knows when to stop arguing and turn her case over to exploitation of several deeply imagined characters.

...turns the placid figure of the familiar old servant into an angel of salvation as, more with chants of prayer and snatches of song than with sentences, Mammy Louise summons up, and transforms herself into, the spirit of survival, the soul of hope that can take sustenance even from despair and that accounts for the fact that blacks could make it out of slavery as people of amazing integrity.

This is one of those embodiments of emotion and idea in theater that remind you how reasonable the Greeks were when they said a god emerged from a play and could be sensed in their midst."D J R Bruckner, The New York Times "...a lightly rollicking vehicle of wit, humor and history."Rohan B Preston, Chicago Tribune "The outcome of the trial onstage is a foregone conclusion...

But none of that prepares you for how much dramatic punch Leslie's play packs in the end... ...Leslie has packed her script with enough bright humor...and the harrowing finale more than rewards..."Robert Hurwitt, San Francisco Examiner