Trouble in Mind

“You was singin’ a number, with lights changin’ all around you.”

While the reader never learns what Brownskin Melody (the show that Wiletta sang in long ago), is about, it is clearly linked to a better memory of Wiletta’s experience on stage. The motif of Blues Music, often accompanied by a rainbow of lights, begins to intrude on Wiletta as she battles with her decision of whether to move forward with Chaos in Belleville or not. This is the Wiletta that Henry remembers, and the Wiletta that is seen again by the end of the play.

 “Show business, it’s just a business. Colored folks ain’t in no theater.”

When the eager young John Nevins arrives for rehearsal, Wiletta is quick to dampen his excitement and expectations over being in a Broadway show. After years of playing stereotypical characters, she knows better than to expect something resembling the craft in a play written, directed, and produced by white people. Wiletta’s cynicism, paired with her reverence for theater, spurs her to butt heads with Manners.

“White folks can’t stand unhappy Negroes…so laugh, laugh when it ain’t funny at all.”

One of the main arguments between the Black actors in the company is whether playing the game of pleasing the white people is degrading, or if it’s a useful survival tool. At the beginning of the play, Wiletta is more than willing to play the game as long as she keeps the job, and she passes on this advice to John.

“I’m tellin’ you now! Oh, you so lucky! Nobody told me, had to learn it for myself.”

Wiletta feels sympathy for John, especially since he is from her hometown of Newport News. She remembers him as a small baby and doesn’t want him to have to go through what she has gone through over the years. When he insists that he must be an actor, Wiletta decides to tell him how it really is in this industry.

“Oh honey, [the play] stinks, ain’t nothin’ at all. ‘Course, if I hear that again, I’ll swear you lyin’.”

Wiletta admits to John that she doesn’t like the script, but that she will always pretend that she does when she is in front of Manners or any of the other white members of the company. She knows that the imbalance of power in the theater, as well as the world at large, leaves her with no option but to hide her opinion. It is only later, when she allows herself to admit how she really feels about it, that she discovers how much she “minds” having to do plays like Chaos in Belleville after all.

“Look at ‘em! Throwin’ stones at little children, got to call out the militia to go to school.”

Throughout the play, Milie and the others reference the growing civil rights movement that is happening concurrently with the events of Trouble in Mind. These are important lines as they provide historical and cultural context for the play and heighten the stakes for the characters. The stories the actors put on stage have the opportunity to address real issues of racial injustice in the world, but instead, American theaters continue to produce and fund shows that reinforce racism.

“I don’t like to think of theater as just a business. Oh, it’s the art…ain’t art a wonderful thing?”

Even though she just got done telling John that to her, and all Black people, theater is just a business, Wiletta changes her tone as soon as Judy arrives. She is eager to win Judy over and make her feel comfortable, so she agrees with anything Judy says outwardly, even if she wholeheartedly disagrees.

“I read twice for the part and there were so many others before me and after me…and I was so scared that my voice came out all funny…and I stumbled on the rug when I went in…everything was terrible.”

Judy recalls how she did poorly in her audition and worried that she might not get the part. Millie pointedly replies that in spite of all that she did wrong, Judy still got the part. The unspoken tension is that Judy, while she has to face sexism in the workplace, still has an easier time managing the power imbalance in the American theater than her Black castmates. This tension between Judy and Wiletta is a prime example of intersectionality’s role within the play.

“You er…wear a beautiful dress in the third act, and I wanted to see if you have nice shoulders.”

After Manners is caught leering at Judy and invading her personal space, he attempts to cover it by pretending it was necessary for the show. Manners’s inappropriate behavior is but a glimpse into what women experienced (and sometimes still experience) from men in power over them in the entertainment industry. 

“And what a chestnut: guns, cannons, drums, Indians, slaves, hearts and flowers, sex and Civil War…on wide screen!”

Manners’s description of the movie he worked on with Sheldon foreshadows a comment Wiletta says later in the play. She says that white people have their own stereotypes that frequent the stage and screen: that all they care about is sex and murder. This description of the movie proves Wiletta right.

“I was casually talking to Ted about the er…er, race situation, kicking a few things around…dynamic subject, hard to come to grips with on the screen, TV, anywhere…explosive subject. Suddenly he reaches to the bottom shelf and comes up with Chaos.”

When Manners first presents Chaos in Belleville to the cast, he pitches it as a timely, anti-lynching play. Manners believes himself to not be racist because he is directing a play that centers a “Black story,” even though the story itself (written by a white playwright) isn’t truthful or respectful to the Black experience. This quote also demonstrates the tendency for some to sensationalize the suffering of Black people. He describes it as if it were something exciting to watch, capitalizing on Black suffering rather than trying to understand it.

“Yes child, you rest yourself, you had a terrible hard day. Bless your soul, you just one of God’s golden-haired angels.”

This quote is a line from Chaos in Belleville, and one of the many examples that Wiletta’s character is written as a stereotypical caricature. One of the racist “characters” that Wiletta has to play is the figure of the “mammy,” a trope portraying Black middle-aged women who dedicate their lives to the white children they help raise. Here, Wiletta’s character talks to Judy’s character in that very way.

“It’s the man’s theater, the man’s money, so what you gonna do?”

In this quote, “the man” refers to the wealthy, white men who are the ones rich enough to fund theater productions. The people with the money control the stories that are distributed and/or created. This line is ironic because Trouble in Mind would have been the first play on Broadway written by a Black woman, except she refused to give “the man” what they wanted in a watered-down version of her script.

“Well yeah, we all mind…but you got to swaller what you mind. What you mind won’t buy beans. I mean, you gotta take what you mind to survive, to eat, to breathe.”

Sheldon stays firm in his belief that Black people should stay quiet about their opinions on theater. He is the only one of the group who has seen a lynching in real life, and coming face to face with that level of race-induced violence has driven him to different modes of self-preservation, including fawning to people like Manners.

“I don’t like to think…makes me fightin’ mad.”

The way that Wiletta typically copes with repeatedly having to play degrading roles is just giving the performance that she knows the director wants. When Manners insists on his new method, which involves the actor justifying their actions and relating it back to their own experience/truth, suddenly she starts to think about just how deeply these roles affect her. Thinking about it is what makes her mad, so that by the end of the play, she finally stands up for herself.

“Tuesday I lunched with Millie because I bumped into her on the street. That restaurant…people straining and looking at me as if I were an old lecher! God knows what they’re thinking.”

Bill O’Wray is oblivious to the ways in which he benefits as a white man in the American Theater, and is frustrated with the changing times. As society starts to call out racist behaviors, people like Manners try to do what they can to not appear racist. Especially as the director of an “anti-lynching play,” Manners encourages Bill to eat with the Black cast members to present a desegregated cast to the public. Bill replies that he’s uncomfortable with people staring when he eats with Millie, but he’s unaware that this is a small discomfort compared to what the Black cast members face from strangers every day.

“I hate the kind of play that bangs you over the head with the message. Keep it subtle.”

When Wiletta critiques Chaos in Belleville, Manners and Bill defend it. Bill makes this remark, saying that their play is making enough of a political statement as it is. These are the kinds of arguments that are used to justify the plays that reinforce racist stereotypes. Here, Bill is not only the voice of a character, but representative of the American (white) audience that Manners talks about later in the play.

“Folks said he was crazy…you know, ‘bout talkin’ back…quick to speak his mind. I left there when I was seventeen. I don’t want to live in no place like that.”

When Sheldon reveals that he witnessed the horrors of a real lynching as a young child, his adamant attitude toward keeping his opinions to himself makes more sense. Sheldon has seen what can happen when a Black person speaks their mind and works hard to make sure it doesn’t happen to him.

 “John, you’re a puppet with strings attached and so am I. Everyone’s a stranger, and I’m the strangest of all.”

In Act II, Judy and John both mimic Manners’s fake, charming mannerisms. They get caught up in the world of Broadway and start to play into the game whether they believe what they are saying on stage or not. After Wiletta stands up to Manners, the spell starts to break and Judy realizes that she is being used to reinforce racism on the stage. In that moment, Judy grows up a bit, and loses some of her naivete to how the world of theater, and the world at large, works.

 “But they weren’t dragged…they come with guns and dragged ‘em out. They weren’t sent to be killed by their mama. The writer wants the damn white man to be the hero, and me the villain.”

This is the core of what’s been bothering Wiletta about her character. When she is asked to justify her character’s actions, she can’t. After talking to Miss Green about it, she realizes the bigger implications of playing this role. Producing the script as written will reinforce certain ideas about Black people, remove their agency, and praise white people for being “activists” and “saving” Black people. Producing the script as written will be promoting a lie.

“The American public is not ready to see you the way you want to be seen because one, they don’t believe it, two, they don’t want to believe it, and three, they’re convinced they’re superior-and that, my friend, is why Carrie and Renard have to carry the ball!”

This line, delivered by Manners, is oddly prophetic. Alice Childress refused to change her play, and ultimately it didn’t make it to Broadway for the very reason Manners tells Wiletta: American audiences weren’t ready and willing to see it. In 2021, at the height of the Black Lives Matter movement, Trouble in Mind made its long overdue Broadway debut. It happened at a historic moment in the American theater that saw several Black playwrights on Broadway at the same time, and Trouble in Mind was discovered to be just as timely then as it was when it was written.

“I’m the only man in the house and what am I doin’? Whittlin’ a doggone stick. But I whittled it, didn’t I? I can’t write a play and I got no money to put one on…Yes! I’m gonna whittle my stick!”

Sheldon puts the financial reality of his situation into perspective after the future of Chaos in Belleville is put on the line. He delivers this line to Wiletta, and it is with a sense of acceptance that he asks her to see his side of things. He doesn’t have the power and money to put on the kinds of shows he wants to be in, so he takes what he can get and is grateful for it. This, in and of itself, is crucial for arguing for Black leaders in the American theater. It is a call to action for a redistribution of money and power to people aside from “the man,” which will ultimately lead to a more accurate and holistic reflection of the human experience on stage.

“Divide and conquer…that’s the way they get the upper hand.”

Wiletta realizes, with defeat, that her fellow castmates (both white and Black) have taken different stances on the argument, and most of them value the opportunity to work and the money they need over the truth Wiletta speaks about. Without a unified front, Wiletta is left alone to contemplate what just happened.