The raw issues in "Mojo" still cry out for discussion

Aishah Rahman has mixed feelings about the ongoing timeliness of her 20-year-old play "The Mojo and the Sayso," which has its Seattle premiere tonight at ACT Theatre under Valerie Curtis Newton's direction.

"I'm so glad it's still being done, but so sad it's still so relevant," said Rahman, by phone from her Providence, R.I., home.

An inner-city family's grief is the subject of "Mojo and the Sayso," inspired by a true 1973 incident. "A 10-year old boy, Clifford Glover, was walking with his father one morning in Queens, N.Y., and two [plain-clothes] policemen stopped them," explained Rahman.

"Not realizing who the men were, the boy and his father ran." The son was shot in the back by the police and killed, and "the father had to live with that," Rahman said.

Pregnant at the time with her daughter Yoruba, Rahman was deeply affected by the case.

Years later she heard that an unscrupulous minister had swindled Glover's family out of its cash settlement from a wrongful-death suit. That's when she began writing "Mojo and the Sayso."

The New York Times lauded the play, in its 1987 premiere at New Jersey's Crossroads Theatre, as "an original, engrossing, at times quite beautiful and moving work."

It has since had quite a few productions. And for the Seattle run, the Hansberry Project (ACT's African-American drama program) is hosting a free public event Saturday evening about issues the play addresses.

"We rarely hear about how a family who's lost a loved one so unexpectedly goes on with their lives, and even finds joy again," observed Hansberry Project managing director Vivian Phillips, moderator of the discussion. "We don't talk much as a community about this kind of grief and loss."

Well-publicized charges of wrongful arrest and police brutality have been lodged by black citizens in many cities in recent years, including Seattle.

But while Phillips is inviting law-enforcement officials to Saturday's event, "what we really want to look at is how we can help people get through the anger, grief and despair the family in Aishah's play experiences."

Set to appear on the panel are retired mental-health administrator Dr. R.Y. Woodhouse, Shirley Caldwell (a clinical consultant and trainer with Therapeutic Health Services) and author and ordained minister Gwendolyn Phillips Coates.

Coates' recent book "Waiting on My Lunch Date: A Journey Though Grief and a Path to Joy," is based on her own mourning process after the sudden death of her husband.

Rahman, who teaches at Brown University, is gratified that "Mojo and the Sayso" catalyzes such exchanges. She was also pleased when a black policeman saw the show and told her how glad he was "that it's not an anti-police play."

"This was a purposeful decision on my part. What I wanted to portray was the interior of these people. How do you go on living after this kind of loss? What happens after the headlines go away?"

Rahman feels the issues she's addressed in her plays and 2001 memoir ("Chewing Water") are not race-bound.

"My analysis is that urban violence is a reflection of America at large. We're all affected by the larger culture, and over the years we've become alienated from one another. It hurts me to say it, but we've lost our sense of common values."

Misha Berson:

mberson@seattletimes.com