Abel Green bursts onto the stage after hopping on the train headed to perform in a minstrel show in a small southern town. It’s 1910 so why not “hire a real coon” whose face will stay Black long after the makeup is removed?
“All negroes are actors by necessity,” says Green. “The script is passed down generation to generation. The Negroes who know they lines tend to live longer than the Negroes that don’t, generally speaking, as it pertains to dealing with white folks.”
Green, played by J. Alphonse Nicholson, (Broadway’s Tony award-winning A Soldier’s Play; P-Valley on Starz; Netflix’s They Cloned Tyrone) takes you through five separate monologues through various iterations of his life.
A minstrel performer in 1910, a faith healer in 1933, FBI informant in 1969, an actor who shuns his HIV-positive friend in 1988, and a former subprime loan lender now homeless (by choice) in 2010.
Nicholson takes you on an emotional rollercoaster as Abel Green comes to terms with his life’s choices and their detriment to the Black community.
Each iteration finds Green on a train, unpacking his life from his suitcase, his destination is at times clear and at times it isn’t.
The set is interactive so you can see the changing landscape of City as he pulls into each decade.
The play is powerful when you look at the struggles of how Green comes to terms with his choices to earn a living and its impact on others around him. Those he loved and those who guided him.
“I am a snitch,” the F.B.I. informant Abel acknowledges, which he isn’t proud of it. “But even Judas had his reasons, and if you’re dumb enough to think it was just about 30 pieces of silver, then you’re as dumb as a box of rocks, for real.”
Nicholson’s performance puts you in a trance as you follow his every word and movement across the stage. He is comfortable, confident, endearing and engaging in this must see performance.
His performance on the bucket drums are reminiscent to the kids honing their talents on Bourbon Street in New Orleans.
Written by Howard L. Craft, “Freight operates on the premise that a person’s spirit, or soul, comes to the world because there is something the soul needs to learn,” says Craft.
“If the soul does not learn it, then it comes back to the world again and again until it’s successful. The soul can exist concurrently in different time periods, in multiple dimensions of the same universe.”
Sidney Edwards joins Nicholson on stage as “The Universal Flow” who assists with Green’s continuous transformation.
Nicholson first performed Freight in 2014 and was excited to return to the theatre, particularly considering it was promoted during the now ended SAG-AFTRA strike.
“The first production of Freight was done in 2014 in Chapel Hill North Carolina. I had worked with Howard Craft and Joseph Megel (director) multiple times prior to Freight. Howard’s writing and Joseph’s direction are the first two things that drew me to this wonderful play, along with the amazing challenge of being on stage for 90 minutes, by myself, telling the journey of five Black men from 1910 to 2010. Each iteration has been an amazing experience. From North Carolina to New York, now Los Angeles,” said Nicoholson in an interview with Broadway World.
Catching actor’s stage performances, in contrast to their television personas, shows their dedication to their craft and their ability to transform from character to character with agility and grace.
The creative team: scenic designer Joel Daavid (scenic desinger); Alison Brummer (lighting designer), Marc Antonio Pritchett (sound designer); Eamonn Farrell (video designer); Danyele Thomas (costume designer); and Rebecca Carr (props designer) did a fabulous job on bringing Freight to life.
They created an interactive set which included beautifully woven imagery that correlates to each decade through the view of the moving train making for a remarkable performance fit for a Black King!
Named one of Essence magazine’s “Of the Essence Screen Kings,” Nicholson is a two-time NAACP Image Award nominee for his role in P-Valley, and other notable credits include Just Mercy (Warner Bros.), Self Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam C.J. Walker (Netflix), Blue Bloods (CBS), Mr. Robot (USA), Shots Fired (FOX), Marvel’s Luke Cage (Netflix), Tales (BET), The Blacklist (NBC), and Chicago PD (NBC). In addition to A Soldier’s Play, his theater credits include Signature Theatre’s twice extended off-Broadway premiere of Dominque Morisseau’s Paradise Blue, directed by Tony winner Ruben Santiago-Hudson, and Days of Rage at 2nd Stage. He was recently seen in the remake of White Men Can’t Jump (Disney/20th Century Studios) and They Cloned Tyrone (Macro/Netflix). Next up: The Sterling Affairs (FX), Black Spartans (Buffalo 8 Productions) and Albany Road.
Freight: The Five Incarnations of Abel Green is playing on Fridays, Saturdays and Mondays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. through December 16 (dark Monday, Nov. 13 and Friday, Nov. 24) at The Fountain Theatre located at 5060 Fountain Avenue in Los Angeles. For reservations and information, call (323) 663–1525 or go to www.FountainTheatre.com.