Trouble in Mind

Trouble in Mind opens the morning of the first rehearsal of the new Broadway play, Chaos in Belleville. Wiletta Mayer, a middle-aged Black actress, is first to arrive on the scene. She is greeted by the elderly doorman, Henry. He remembers her from years ago when she performed in Brownskin Melody at the old Galy Theater. He tells her how beautiful she sounded and looked singing that song with beautiful rainbow lights all around her. Wiletta is touched by his flattery but doesn’t remember him. He says, “I was the electrician. Rigged up all those lights and never missed a cue. I’m the doorman here now. I’ve been in show business over fifty years” (8). The two continue to talk and prepare for the morning, before Henry exits.

While she’s alone, Wiletta walks onto the stage and poses in a glamorous way, like she did in Brownskin Melody. She starts to sing some of the Blues song from her time at the Galy, then “pushes the memory aside” (10). As she finishes, another actor enters the theater. John Nevins is a young Black actor who is itching to make his mark in the business. As soon as he introduces himself, Wiletta knows he’s not a native New Yorker. She asks him where he’s from, and he tells her he grew up in Newport News, Virginia. Wiletta beams, asking about her old town, and discovers that John is in fact the son of one of her childhood friends, Estelle. The last time she saw Estelle she had a baby, and John reveals that he’s her only child so that baby must have been him.

Wiletta suddenly feels her age, and sees the light in John’s eyes. She decides to mentor him in this process, teaching him how to appease the director (who is white) so that he can keep the job. She tells him a multitude of things that are expected of actors in show business: to not be educated but to have a natural gift, to laugh when the white man laughs and to stay quiet when he doesn’t, and to never let on that he needs the job. She says, “Management hates folks who need jobs. They get the least money, the least respect, and most times they don’t get the job” (12). John is unsure of these tips, but Wiletta insists that she will teach him more about the industry than he learned in any of his classes.

More of the cast arrives. Millie, a Black actress who is in her mid-thirties, walks in wearing a mink coat. When Wiletta asks her to show it off, Millie replies, “Don’t look too hard, it’s not paid for” (14). She congratulates John, who she saw at auditions, for getting the role. When John returns the congratulations, she brushes it off, saying that she didn’t care either way since her husband doesn’t want her to work. She wanted Wiletta’s role but she was too young for the part. Soon, two more actors enter: Sheldon, an elderly Black man and a veteran in show business, and Judy Sears, a young white actress freshly graduated from Yale School of Drama. Sheldon is overly accommodating and kind to the nervous Judy, and Wiletta follows his example. Judy adds that she hopes someone gets something from this play: “that people are people” (18). She tells them she was nervous she wasn’t going to get the part because she flubbed her audition. Minnie doesn’t hesitate to remind her she did get the part after all that, anyway. She starts to talk about how she hopes this role will be different from the stereotypical ones she’s had before. Sheldon retorts that she shouldn’t complain: Work is work.

When the director, Al Manners, and stage manager, Eddie Fenton (both white) enter, the power dynamics shift undeniably. Manners is all Hollywood grins and charm, sidling up to Wiletta and talking friendly to Sheldon, both of whom he’s directed in films before. He tells them that he’s introducing a new directing method for this play and asks them to go along with it. He wants them to justify their character’s actions. He begins with an exercise (though the cast doesn’t realize it) where he throws paper on the stage, then announces the stage is messy. Judy bends to pick up the paper, but Manners tells her not to: Instead, Wiletta should clean up the stage. Sheldon and John move to do it instead, but Manners barks at them not to move. Wiletta finally anxiously picks it up, and Manners drops the act. He proclaims they all brought a real tension to the stage that he wants to see more of in the play.

They jump into rehearsing a scene immediately. Eddie rushes offstage to answer a ringing phone while the actors get in place. The play is clearly riddled with stereotypes. Judy picks up on them and pauses, but Manners tells her to keep going. The actors say their lines dutifully, until they get to a scene where Wiletta is meant to sing an old spiritual song. She delivers it mournfully, and the cast praises her. Manners, however, is unsatisfied. He demands her to have a motivation for singing it. He tries a word association game, starting with “Montgomery” (40). The play, which is about the lynching of a Black man who is killed for voting for the first time, parallels the racially-motivated violence happening in the United States in the mid-20th century. Rocks being thrown at children, Martin Luther King Jr., and the killings of Black people in are all things that come to mind during the word association exercise.

Wiletta protests against it—stating it’s too much—but then she sings, and her song is strong, courageous, and triumphant. Again, the cast praises her, much more so this time. Again, Manners is frustrated, saying, “Are you out of your senses? When you didn’t know what you were doing…perfection on the nose” (41). Wiletta is equally frustrated because she knew what he wanted from her the first time. The cast disperses, leaving Wiletta alone. Henry walks in and asks her if someone hurt her feelings. She confirms, and they discuss how they’ve both had to hold their tempers today with Manners: Henry when Manners yelled at him for bringing the wrong breakfast pastry, and Wiletta during the word association exercise. Henry says he has “the most ferocious temper” (44), and Wiletta says she does too, adding “I take and take, then watch out!” (44). She gets fired up, once again realizing she and Henry aren’t getting any younger. She declares that she will be an actress, no matter what, as the curtain ends. The last thing the audience hears before intermission is the sound of a Blues song creeping into the space.