- "Confederates", a play by award-winning Detroit playwright Dominique Morisseau opens February 6th at Detroit Public Theater.

Now, this play focuses on two black women living in America 160 years apart.

It jumps back and forth in time to show the impact of racism and gender bias on both of their lives.

The play is directed by another Detroit native, Goldie Patrick.

I'd like to welcome her now to "American Black Journal".

Great to have you here.

- It's great to be here.

Thank you for having me.

- Yeah, and congratulations on the play.

- Thank you.

- I love this concept, two lives, 160 years apart.

- Yeah.

- But told in a way that they kind of overlap, right?

- Absolutely.

- They fold over each other in different ways.

Talk about the story and how you came up with it.

- Yeah, so you know, "Confederates" is such a brilliant play, and it's largely a brilliant play because it uses a genre bending to technique and aesthetic that uses comedy and satire and farce, at times, to really investigate the way systems of oppression disenfranchise black women, and black women often find themselves silenced by those systems.

- Yeah.

- So we get to watch the clever ways black women maneuver these systems in spite of the oppression.

We get to watch the mistakes that their allies try to make in thinking that they're supporting these two characters, and, ultimately, I think the hope is that the audience walks away understanding that until we are all committed to dismantling systems, that individual work towards liberation is something that we have to commit to in addition to the bigger work.

- Yeah.

- So it's a wild drive.

- Right, right, right.

- It's a wild ride.

- And Dominique has written so many really fascinating stories like this.

Talk about the process of taking it from the page.

- Yeah.

- I guess, to the stage.

Right, the telling this story in a way that people can follow and be engaged by it.

- Oh, man, I had the honor of first working on this play in 2018 before it ever went to the stage.

So I had the honor of sitting around a table with a cast of actors, and, now, I have this honor at Detroit Public Theater of taking it from sitting around the table to putting it on the stage, which is a huge journey.

- Yeah.

- The dramaturgy, which is the world building that this play requires, is some of the work that I'm most passionate about.

I'm a professor myself, and I'm a hip-hop womanist.

I'm a scholar womanism, and so we spent an intense process of really investigating the characters, learning about the history of enslaved women of African descent during this time period.

We studied ways that black women in academia are struggling through those systems.

We learned the names of these abolitionists, and we really anchored each character on a real person.

So all the actors, which are incredible, they had an anchor of history to make really creative, fun choices, and the hope is that the audience, when they see these characters go, "Who is that?"

- Yeah.

- And then they go, "Oh, I wanna learn about the people who that character is based on."

- Yeah, yeah, so in some ways, I think part of the point here is to point out that it's 160 years.

- [Goldie] Yeah.

- That the gap is between these two lives, but in many ways, it's not quite that much.

- Exactly.

- There's not that much difference.

- Oh, absolutely.

Dominique is courageous.

- Yeah.

- In writing this play.

- Yeah.

- And her courage is necessary to tell the story of black women in America, because we are courageous.

- Yeah.

- You know, the play is less about us surviving and about the brilliance of us thriving.

- Yeah, yeah.

- And it's not an easy story, but it's a beautiful one, and her approach to it is allowing us to laugh at how absurd white supremacy is as a delusion, right?

(Stephen laughs) You see how you laugh at it?

- Right, yeah.

- And we don't always get that.

- Yeah.

- Sometimes, we have to sit in how painful the harm has been.

- Right.

- But this play is this brave approach that says, "Isn't it absurd to think that we aren't brilliant, that we aren't geniuses, that we don't make the world that we all live in?"

- Yeah.

- And so it's new.

It's different, and I think that's what makes it so appropriate for Detroit, 'cause Detroit is the place where culture is created.

- Right.

- Detroit is the place where brave voices speak up.

- (laughs) Right.

- And so Dominique has added to that cannon in a Detroit way.

- Yeah, talk about doing this at Detroit Public Theater, and I love the word that you used a little bit ago, dramaturgy.

I don't know if I've heard that word before.

- Oh, dramaturgy is my jam.

(laughs) - But explain that a little more for the viewers.

- Absolutely, dramaturgy is the study of plays in the context of understanding all of the aspects of the world of the play.

So it often deals with history.

It deals with the sociopolitical and aspects.

It deals with deepening character development.

It deals with premise.

It deals with all the nerd stuff, because I'm a nerd.

It deals with all the nerd stuff, but it helps support a playwright in writing the work, and then it helps support a director in bringing the work into- - Staging it, yeah.

- Absolutely.

- Yeah.

- I love Detroit Public Theater.

I love coming home to Detroit.

Look, I'm born and raised in Detroit.

My passion for theater was developed at Golightly Educational Center by Juanita Wesley.

- Yeah.

- So I'm proud to come home to Detroit and work with Detroit Public Theater and see all of my family and community come into the theater and see work by a Detroit playwright.

- Yeah.

- With all Detroit native cast.

- Right, right.

- With a Detroit based crew.

It's powerful.

- Yeah, yeah.

- It's powerful.

- What's the message that you want people, especially people who are maybe not as familiar with the African American story or struggle, who will come see this to take away from it?

What understanding should they be getting here?

- That's an interesting question.

You know, this play has been a practice of liberation for me, because I've been able to unapologetically direct this play, focusing on black women in my audience and the care and the freedom that they deserve.

- [Stephen] Yeah, yeah.

- And I've been able to do that, because I believe that's how Dominique wrote the play.

So I would say to audiences that consider themselves allies of black women in the pursuit of freedom, investigate how you can become an accomplice.

Investigate how you can risk more.

Interrogate the things that you're afraid to say in mixed company or in private.

- Yeah.

- Figure out what actions support the rhetoric, and then be willing to do it.

We talk a lot.

This place says, "You gotta move."

- You gotta do more.

- You gotta do it.

- Yeah.

- Because guess what?

We don't have to do it anymore.

- Right, right.

- Black women, resistance is rest, it's joy, it's pleasure, it's stillness, and so there's this dual opportunity for black women to rest, resist in that way.

- Yeah.

- And then a call to arms for those that consider themselves allies to step up and be active.

- Wow, wow, what a wonderful way to kind of summarize the work.

- Oh, thank you.

The work is beautiful and it's moving.

I hope everyone is transformed as they experience it.

- Yeah, all right.

well, congratulations.

- Oh, thank you.

And we look forward to the play, and thanks for being here.

- Thank you for having me.

- On "American Black Journal".