In 1964, a sharecropper’s daughter stood up at the Democratic National Convention and asked the room, “is this America, the land of the free and the home of the brave?” It is a question that we are still trying to answer as a country and it is the challenge presented on the Seattle Rep stage in Fannie: The Music and Life of Fannie Lou Hamer.
Fannie Lou Townsend was born in 1917 in Mississippi as the youngest of 20 children. When she attended a civil rights meeting in 1962 at 45 years old, she was stunned to hear people talking in the meeting about their rights as human beings. As Fannie claims, “I never knew we could vote before. Nobody ever told us.” Inspired, she went, in the summer of 1962, to attempt to register to vote only to be turned away after failing a literacy test. This resulted in her getting immediately fired. For the rest of her life, she was extorted, arrested, threatened, harassed, shot at, and assaulted while trying to register and/or exercise her right to vote. Through all of this, Fannie Lou Hamer never gave up. She continually fought for and lifted up the most marginalized members of her community for, as she asserts, “Nobody’s free until everybody’s free.”
Cheryl L. West has a reputation of bringing to Seattle Rep stories from the past and making them feel all too relevant and contemporary. So, it is no surprise that the current production of Fannie would deliver, thanks to the revelation that is E. Faye Butler, the bittersweet, poignant, inspirational, rousing tour de force. It is clear that Butler has completely inhabited the skin of the magnetic civil rights leader. There is not one moment of the 70 consecutive minutes she is onstage that the audience was not completely captivated. Within the first three minutes, we were clapping and singing along to one of the many spirituals and protest songs that are sown throughout the piece. Which is not to say this was a purely celebratory evening. There were also moments that were so quiet, you could hear each individual audience member’s sharp intake of breath as we were brought through some of the more horrific and heartbreaking moments of Fannie’s journey.
Though this is a one woman show, and, believe me, the stage belongs to Butler, there is a group of musicians (Morgan E on Keys/Vocals, Chic Street Man and Felton Offard alternating on Guitar/Harmonica/Vocals, and Timothy Davis on Drums/Percussion/Vocals) that are there to support and fill out the world. Thanks to director Henry Godinez and Music Director and Arranger Felton Offard, Butler moves freely and effortlessly from speech to song. The music serves not to further the story but more as a lifeline for and an extension of the character. Hamer sings to summon courage, to express grief, to bring joy, to ask for forgiveness, and to bring us all to church. As Fannie states early on, “Nothing like a song to find your truth in someone else’s story.” And, thanks to the truly herculean efforts and immense talents of E. Faye Butler, we were brought wholly into Fannie’s story.
After an evening exploring all that Fannie sacrificed and fought for, it was with a heavy heart that, as exiting the theater, I looked down at my phone to see that we had failed to pass the Voting Rights Act. I’m sorry we have failed you Fannie. But, to take inspiration once more from you and your words, “If I fall, I’ll fall five feet four inches forward in the fight for freedom. I’m not backing off.”
Fannie: The Music and Life of Fannie Lou Hamer is presented by Seattle Rep as a co-commission with Goodman Theatre. It plays through February 12 at the Bagley Wright Theater. For tickets and more information, visit https://www.seattlerep.org/plays/202122-season/fannie/