Filed under: Interviews, Hot Picks, Reviews, Fiction
In 'Some Sing, Some Cry,' written with her sister Ifa Bayeza, also an award-winning playwright, Shange spins pure harmony with this enthralling tale. It begins with Bette Mayfield, who, along with her granddaughter Eudora, has been recently freed from Sweet Tamarind, a rice and cotton plantation on an island off South Carolina's coast. They land in Charleston, where they make lives for themselves as a fortune-teller and a seamstress. From there, the matriarchal lineage goes on to create music for future and past generations.
Shange's speech is halting, caused by a series of minor strokes, but the 61-year-old literary icon who lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., is no less spirited. She recently took time from her busy schedule to speak with BlackVoices.com. Excerpts of the conversation are below.
BlackVoices.com: How did you come up with the idea for this novel?
Ntozake Shange: We were approached by a producer in Los Angeles to do a miniseries that would tell the story of black music through seven generations of a matriarchal family. The Mayfields become the family that we trace from slavery time all the way through the present.
BV: How did you all come up with the story?
NS: We took about an hour to have them born into slavery and leave the South during the Great Migration. Some ended up in New York, Chicago, Europe, and then the family kept going. So their borders kept changing. Then wars came, and they experienced all kinds of turmoil and great tragedy -- and situations that weren't of their making. We came up with the name Mayfield, I think, by throwing out names until we finally picked one.
BV: What did you like about Mayfield?
NS: It was country. It was Anglo, and it just sat well on our tongue.
BV: The characters of the Mayfield family are so colorfully drawn, starting with Bette and Dora. How did you develop the characters and carry the lineage through history?NS: We looked at large families in the music industry, and very often, one generation carries on the work of previous families. It's like their legacy. The legacy that these women had was living daringly and also imagining themselves becoming more. They had music to rely on as a spiritual part of their lives, which I think is wonderful. I like that part.
BV: This is a double victory for you. You have a new book, and Tyler Perry's art-house film division will release a film adaptation of your award-winning novel, 'For Colored Girls,' which is scheduled to be released in November. Are you excited? And do you think a film can do justice to such an important piece of work?
NS: I don't know yet. I haven't seen it yet. I've only seen two rough cuts. I will see it when everybody else sees it. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. As everyone has noted on the blogs and the computer world, Mr. Perry has put his stamp on it in the sense that he didn't want to use the whole title. I can't comment on the rest of it because I don't know. The synchronization of words and the mouth still has yet to be done, and I have yet to see it.
BV: But do you approve of it?
NS: In the beginning I approved of it. In the beginning it was a joint venture, but I can't weigh in on it because I haven't seen it. The parts I saw were rough cuts, but I did like certain moments. I liked Anika Noni Rose's piece about the rape. I liked Macy Gray, who did the abortion piece, and I liked the parts played by Kimberly Elise and Michael Ealy. All the moments with them I enjoyed very much. I'm lucky in a sense, because Mr. Perry used whole portions of my poems. He may have chopped them up, but what's there are my words verbatim.
BV: What is next for you?
NS: I'm working on a book of short stories. I have a book of essays coming out in January. I also will appear in the premiere presentation of a multimedia reworking of 'Liliane: Resurrection of the Daughter' at the Nuyorican Poets' Café in New York City on Nov. 8, 10 and 17. I also will be honored by the New York City Hip-Hop Theater Festival in December.