Theater review: Northlight's 'Nina Simone: Four Women' examines what turned an artist into an activist

“Nina Simone: Four Women” - ★ ★ ★

In “Nina Simone: Four Women,” currently running at Northlight Theatre in Skokie, playwright Christina Ham chronicles the singer/songwriter's transformation from artist to activist following the tragedy of Sept. 15, 1963, when Ku Klux Klansmen planted a bomb in Birmingham's 16th Street Baptist Church that killed Addie Mae Collins, 14; Denise McNair, 11; Carole Robertson, 14; and Cynthia Wesley, 14, and injured many others.

The murders, which came several months after the assassination of civil rights leader Medgar Evers in Mississippi, galvanized Simone - a classically trained pianist prodigy and genre-bending vocalist - to address in her music the struggle for social justice.

Inspired by Simone's song “Four Women,” Ham's play-with-music unfolds shortly after the bombing in the church's ruined sanctuary where Nina Simone (Sydney Charles in a vocally potent, emotionally profound performance) attempts to compose a response to the tragedy. She's accompanied by Sam (music director Daniel Riley), her brother and pianist. Significantly, on Christopher Rhoton's disquieting set - with its shattered stained glass, decimated choir loft and rubble-strewn nave - the piano and organ are undamaged, suggesting music's enduring power to assuage grief, sustain faith and incite change.

“When words falter, music doesn't,” says the imperious, impassioned Simone, who is as purposeful as she is flawed.

Her determination to confront and unsettle her audience stands in contrast to the devout, deferential Sarah (Deanna Reed-Foster), a maid who's on her way to work when the unrest in Birmingham's streets forces her to seek shelter in what remains of her church. Ever-cautious, Sarah encourages patience and a reliance on faith, which Reed-Foster movingly expresses in the simple yet stirring “His Eye is on the Sparrow.”

The third of Simone's four women to arrive at the church is Ariel Richardson's Sephronia, a light-skinned teacher and civil rights activist who comes to document the atrocity in photographs. A follower of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., she is well-educated and committed but - as Simone points out - relegated to the sidelines in a movement that places men front and center.

“If you aren't in the spotlight, you're in the dark,” says Simone who adds, “where do we fit into Dr. King's dream?”

Not long after, Sweet Thing (Melanie Brezill), a street-wise sex worker, shows up hoping to pilfer from the crime scene a bit of U.S. history she can sell to get bus fare to Chicago.

With their murdered counterparts weighing heavily on their minds, the women debate how to combat increasingly violent bigotry. Sephronia favors King's nonviolent approach. Frustrated with reform's sluggish pace, Simone argues in favor of Malcolm X's “by any means necessary” position.

Class, race, responsibility to one's community and the role of women of color in the civil rights movement emerge as talking points in dialogue that sometimes borders on didactic. The play is fairly schematic and Ham (like Simone's song) depicts the characters in broad, archetypal strokes. We barely get to know Brezill's Sweet Thing and we're never even introduced to Riley's Sam.

A sense of urgency underscores director Kenneth L. Roberson's production, whose power rests largely with its songs (five of them written or co-written by Simone), gorgeously arranged by Darius Smith. The fervent “Sinnerman;” the anthemic “To Be Young, Gifted and Black” (written in honor of playwright Lorraine Hansberry); and the titular “Four Women” (a haunting expression of blackness) are exquisitely performed by the exceptional quartet of Charles, Reed-Foster, Richardson and Brezill and accompanied by the indispensable Riley.

Ultimately, it's the blistering protest anthem “Mississippi Goddam” - an exhortation of anger and despair Charles' Simone has spent the play composing - that rattles the rafters.

A combination aria and tirade, Charles's rendition of the cri de coeur conveys the torment and pain Simone endured as a black woman in America who - along with three other women - must honor not only their own legacy but also the unfilled promise of four girls from Birmingham.

<b>Location:</b> Northlight Theatre, North Shore Center for the Performing Arts, 9501 Skokie Blvd., Skokie, (847) 673-6300 or northlight.org

<b>Showtimes:</b> 1 and 7:30 p.m. Wednesday; 7:30 p.m. Thursday; 8 p.m. Friday; 2:30 and 8 p.m. Saturday; 2:30 p.m. Sunday through March 2. Also 7 p.m. Feb. 24. No 1 p.m. show Feb. 20

<b>Tickets:</b> $30-$88

<b>Running time:</b> About 95 minutes, no intermission

<b>Parking:</b> Free in the lot and parking garage

<b>Rating:</b> For teens and older; contains mature subject matter including sexual and political content