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• The Good Negro is a historical production that feels like the real thing

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It's Birmingham, Alabama, and the year is 1962. An incident in a department store triggers a major fight over legalized segregation in Alabama, and the fight is ready to begin. Yes, it is history, but Tracey Scott Wilson's The Good Negro is a fictitious rewrite of the early Civil Rights Movement in Alabama. Like all good fiction, this splendid production from Chicago's Goodman Theater plays like the real thing.

For most of us, the Civil Right's Movement of the post World War II era, is reduced to a chapter in textbook in a U.S. History class. Its leaders were fearless, angelic, and their undying dedication produced a constant stream of social and legal progress--ah, if only such watershed events had been so simple! Ms. Wilson removes the sheen from these pioneering organizers to reveal a more complex picture. The Rev. James Lawrence (a character clearly based on Dr. Martin Luther King) has had some frustrated attempts to challenge segregation in the South, but now in

Birmingham, he has found the perfect "Good Negro", Claudette Sullivan, a housewife whose four year old daughter caused their arrest when she had to use "White" restroom in department store.

Now, can the perfect incident reinvigorate the movement? It is up to the leaders, and here the play rightly focuses on the Rev. Lawrence (Billy Eugene Jones), his associate Henry Evans (Teagle F. Bougere), and a worldly and wise trouble shooter, Bill Rutherford (Demetrios Troy). The superb character development of these leads moves the story with a vividness rarely seen in historical dramas. Though fictitious, they seem real as their struggles parallel the struggles of the early 1960's and their all too human frailties remind us of that permanent reality of history that behind every public image there is a private life. Director Chuck Smith rightly concentrates on these characters. He keeps them up front and real and their performances are stellar.

Ms Wilson's sub-plots with the watching F. B.I. are less compelling, especially the one involving the recruitment of a local racist to infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan, but they blend seamlessly into the main event without too much distraction. The play does not diminish the great achievements if the Civil right's Movement, on the contrary, in showing the difficulties of the struggle and the all too human frailties of its leaders, Ms. Wilson story reminds us what a truly remarkable achievement it was. As we look back, note the present--this play opened in the South, and the National

Civil Right's Museum is in Birmingham, Alabama.

The Good Negro will continue at the Goodman Theatre until June 6. The Goodman is at 170 N. Dearborn in Chicago's Loop. Call 312-443-3800 or check out: WWW.goodmantheatre.org for further information.