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Penumbra Theatre founder defines American black stage

Lou Bellamy's vision is that everything is performed as if there were only black people in the audience.

from the June 24, 2008 edition

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That was 1976. Two years later, Wilson came to St. Paul, invited by a member of Penumbra's company. At the time, Wilson was known as a poet who had done some theater. "He had never seen a black theater company with such good production values," Bellamy recalls. "He wondered if he could write anything good enough for this stage."

"Black Bart and the Sacred Hills," was his first attempt. "It was rough," says Bellamy, "but you could see that he had something." Then came "Malcolm X," a one-man play starring Bellamy. After that was "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom."

Wilson moved on to Seattle and fame. But Penumbra had been noticed. "He was our 'in' to a larger world," says Bellamy.

In 1995, Bellamy first crossed the Mississippi River to work with Minneapolis's famed Guthrie Theatre on a rarely performed black work called "Big White Fog." It made headlines because Bellamy was known for his hostility to white productions of black drama.

It's still a notion that rubs him a bit raw. "I know black history of theater. I know what's on the line and why," he says. "When they're not doing it right, I loathe it." But he says he finally decided it was better to collaborate than to criticize.

So the opportunities have opened up. Bellamy has cooperated twice with the Guthrie on plays by Wilson. In 2007 he directed Wilson's "Two Trains Running" at New York's Signature Theatre, a production that won an Obie and a Lucille Lortel Awards for Best Off-Broadway revival. This year he directed a production of "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" at Washington's Kennedy Center and will direct plays in Cleveland; Kansas City, Mo.; Phoenix and Tucson, Ariz.

Yet Bellamy hates to leave Penumbra, with its well-worn 300-seat theater only five blocks from his childhood home. "Why do I have to go to New York or Chicago to become a good person and practice my vocation?" he asks. Working in larger theaters, he admits, is a fun opportunity to use "all the bells and whistles." Yet, when audiences enjoy one of his productions elsewhere, he says he still thinks longingly, "Oh, if only they'd seen it [at Penumbra]!"

Bellamy's Minnesota roots run deep. He's an outdoorsman and avid hunter. And he has a genuine admiration for his white Minnesota audiences. "The extent of your humanity is your ability to see yourself in people who are vastly different from you," he says respectfully (although he can't help laughing as he describes watching white Minnesotans clapping awkwardly on the 1-3 beat at Langston Hughes's "Black Nativity.")

Bellamy has made his mark. "In the field of American theater, Lou Bellamy is a sequoia," says Rohan Preston, theater critic at the Star Tribune in Minneapolis. Mr. Preston cites a directing style that "combines muscular intellect with jazzy lyricism" in addition to the humanism that has made Bellamy a strong mentor to more than one generation of actors. As Bellamy himself might say, says Preston, "he's a major dude."

But Bellamy's vision of himself is principally as "an evangelist" for black theater, and now is his chance to preach from a national podium. At home, he says, Penumbra is solid without him. Among other pieces that have fallen in place have been the appointment of his daughter, Sarah Bellamy, to head up Penumbra's educational program – and hopefully to help pass black theater on to yet another generation.

For Bellamy, this time of life is a good one. Over the course of more than 30 years you learn a lot, he says. "I'm now at the top of my craft and that's a wonderful place to be."

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