Earnest 'Detroit '67' examines origins of city's downfall

There's no hiding Detroit's scars. They're present in the city's abandoned houses, darkened streets and decaying factories, the result of a collapsed auto industry, a diminishing tax base, record-setting unemployment, crime and a recession which culminated this year in the largest municipal bankruptcy in the nation's history.

But the roots of the downward spiral of this once-thriving economic and cultural powerhouse date back more than 40 years, when Detroit police raided an after-hours drinking club in an African American neighborhood. The raid sparked five days of riots that claimed 43 lives and resulted in more than 2,000 stores looted and some 400 buildings burned or damaged. In the end, it took National Guard and U.S. Army troops to quell the violence.

Playwright Dominique Morisseau examines that Great Rebellion in the well-intentioned "Detroit '67" in its Midwest premiere at Northlight Theatre in Skokie. The first of a proposed trilogy, the play echoes Lorraine Hansberry's "A Raisin in the Sun" and August Wilson's "The Piano Lesson."

Like those seminal examinations of race and family, "Detroit '67" centers on siblings who disagree over how to spend an inheritance and how to scale the racial divide. Unfortunately, despite the efforts of director Ron OJ Parson and his earnest cast, the well-acted but formulaic "Detroit '67" fails to measure up. It needs more urgency, more tension. Trimming the dialogue and stepping up the pace might help. So might fleshing out the characters, who tend to speak in slogans and who seem insulated from the chaos erupting around them for much of the play.

The Motown accompaniment - featuring classics from The Temptations, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions, among others - is a nice, albeit, less-than-subtle touch.

That said, Morisseau's sincerity is evident, and the sibling relationship she depicts is quite touching. In fact, the scenes between the cautious, ever-loyal Chelle (the warm, relatable Tyla Abercrumbie) and her determined, forward-looking younger brother Lank (the genial, passionate Kamal Angelo Bolden) are among the best in the play, which unfolds in the basement of the childhood home Chelle and Lank inherited from their late parents. The play opens with the siblings preparing to reopen their unlicensed, after-hours club, known as a "blind big." Chelle, the widowed mother of a Tuskegee University student, is content to supplement their inheritance with money they earn hosting the late-night parties. Lank has bigger plans, which include purchasing a bar with his best friend Sly (a sincere, romantic Kelvin Roston Jr.).

Driving home after finalizing the sale, Lank and Sly encounter a badly beaten white woman with no money or identification. Fearing the repercussions two black men would surely face if they showed up at a hospital with a battered white woman, they bring her home where Chelle reluctantly agrees to care for her overnight. When Cassandra Bissell's Caroline (a symbol of both racial division and a bridge to understanding) wakes, she reveals little and refuses offers to take her home. Instead she volunteers to tend bar for the party, which amuses Chelle's friend Bunny - a kind of neighborhood concierge saucily played by Coco Elysses. The offer intrigues Lank, who begins to develop feelings for the distressed damsel.

Bolden and Bissell are very good. So is Abercrumbie, whose convincing performance anchors Northlight's production. The acting is solid, the subject is resonant and the play itself has potential. But to reach it, Morisseau has to raise the stakes.