Arts Listings

Jovelyn Richards of Oakland is a born storyteller. When she was little, her mother would have visitors by for coffee “and I heard things that weren’t said; I put language to their secrets. After they left, I told my mother their story. She knew the truth from them and would say, ‘Where did you get that?’ I was putting language to their secrets. I didn’t know how to decode that for her.” 

This continued on in school. “My mother told me she’d got so tired of coming to the principal’s office to get me. She was exhausted! Then, when she’d be walking in front of me on the way home, the clicking of her high heels, the sound of her dress, her silk stockings ... the stories about her would just come out. She’d stop to lecture me, and I’d tell her a story—and she’d say, ‘I just came to get you for doing the same thing!’” 

Richards’ solo play with live music, Come Home, the story of 26 African-American men leaving a rural Arkansas town to serve in World War II with only 13 returning, is playing at The Marsh in San Francisco through March 8.  

In it she plays the wife of one of the black soldiers, Miss D.  

“Donna Ray at the start, but who has to become Miss D. when he comes back,” she said. “It’s about what she has to give up in order to sustain life, to keep the passion they had for each other—or at least renegotiate what that looks like. It’s about what war does to the community, how the soldiers carry war back home.” 

When her husband returns after “they’ve been away from each other for two years, the very first night, Miss D. decides what he needs—she makes his favorite liquor, prepares a bath for him—and it comes to him as an assault. He’s holding images of dying soldiers in his mind, of seeing the racism ... how do you sit down, make love? Navigate the simple pleasures. A lot of men came back silent from the war. Others had to digest that silence, like Miss D. in the play. And that was given to their children, who gave it to their children ...” 

One of the spurs to go off to war was racism. “Two children were lynched. For many African-Americans, going to the war created a foundation to be seen as Americans. In some ways, it empowered them to go to war, to see what fighting for freedom was. My daddy recently told me his uncles said that’s why they left Arkansas after the war—they couldn’t tolerate that kind of racism anymore. And that’s why I grew up in Milwaukee.” 

In the play, the story of the other soldiers who return is told by Miss D. through the effect they have on their families, the community. And those who don’t return are talked about. “One, specifically, couldn’t read or write, but drew pictures of the war. Not of battles, but the faces of war, like a Polish girl who’d lost everything. And one night, the lost soldiers show up in the room when Miss D. and her husband are making love.” 

The survivors also engage in a courageous act, when there’s an attempted lynching of a 14-year-old young man in the town. “They went off to fight for equality and then have to deal with the fact that one of their own sons is going to be killed.” 

Veterans and members of peace groups have attended the show, “George from Veterans For Peace, people from Rosie The Riveter ... two Vietnam vets came out of the audience and asked me, ‘How did you know?’ Something of what happened to my characters happened to several of their friends.” 

“Storytelling is the oldest form of art,” said Richards, “and it’s been neglected. We neglect our own stories. The characters in stories are templates for what it’s like to be human. And we go on to find the stories within ourselves. What jazz and blues did for the 20th century, the story will do for the 21st century.” 

COME HOME 

8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday through March 8 at The Marsh, 1062 Valencia St., San Francisco. 

(415) 641-0235. www.marsh.org.