“Why should we respect a law that doesn’t respect us?” -Nikkole Salter
By Eric George Tauber
CINCINNATI, Ohio — What does it mean to do the right thing? Does it mean playing by the rules or breaking those rules when they’re unfair? What would you do to secure your child’s future in a better, safer school? Would you break the law if you felt you had no other choice?
When I was a boy, my family picked up and moved house to get us into a better school district. Fortunately, we had the means. Not everyone does. In Tijuana, an unknown number of parents wake up at 3am to get their kids to school north of the border. Falsifying residency is a crime, but parents who are desperate to give their children a better future will do what they have to do.
This is the dilemma of Lines in the Dust by Nikkole Salter, a video production from the New Normal Rep, established in 2020 as “A New Theatre Company for a New Era.” Under the direction of Awoye Timpo, the three actors had to interact remotely rather than in person, which affects their chemistry. But given our COVID restrictions, this was the best remote production I’ve seen.
We meet Denitra (Melissa Joyner) and Beverly (Lisa Rosetta Strum) at an open house in the upscale suburb of Millburn outside of Newark, New Jersey. Denitra is a single mother of a daughter going into high school, Noelle. Beverly is the principal of the high school Noelle will be attending. As two black women, they joke about the coded, thinly veiled racism of the real-estate industry which red-lines people like them out of such neighborhoods. They have an easy, sisterly, repartée, going back and forth in unfinished sentences. It’s fun to eavesdrop on the humor and musicality of their exchange.
A year and a half later, when a student at that school is shot and killed, fingers point to the low-income housing projects in nearby Newark. To investigate, the school board hires Mike DiMaggio, a retired cop turned PI. Jeffrey Bean plays Mike DiMaggio with gruff, blue-collar charm. He speaks off-the-cuff, oblivious to the cringes prompted by some of his statements. DiMaggio balks at the suggestion that he might be “racist.” He just wants to keep “the wrong people” out of Millburn. And he expresses some pretty strong opinions about “the Jews” who will rent out to “just about anybody as long as they’re making money.”
DiMaggio is a thorough investigator, exposing Denitra’s subterfuge and Beverly’s role as an accessory. He strongly believes in following the rules for society to function. Denitra speaks just as passionately, and more poetically, about a mother’s duty to do all she can for her child’s future even if that means breaking the law. Principal Long is strong in her principles, wanting very much to do right by her students even if it costs her her job.
Between scenes, we get to listen to some arrangements from a tight jazz combo by the aptly named Alphonso Horne. The initial strains evoke more of a noir gumshoe detective story than this story. Yet the compositions are works of art in themselves.
I hope that professors of ethics and sociology take note of Lines in the Dust to spark serious discussions and a drive for genuine solutions.
Lines in the Dust by Nikkole Salter is available for viewing on Vimeo.
And that’s Show-Biz.
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Eric George Tauber, formerly of San Diego where he acted and wrote freelance theater reviews, now lives in Cincinnati. Plays produced online remain his beat for San Diego Jewish World.