Why Stageworks’ “When the Righteous Triumph” Is a Must-see

In February of 1960, a group of African American high school students made Tampa history: They sat at the white-only F.W. Woolworth’s counter on Franklin Street, and ordered lunch. By September, Woolworth’s and other lunch counters in the city had desegregated.

It wasn’t easy. There were more sit-ins to come, and disputes about tactics. There were also negotiations with the city, even an assassination attempt by the Klan. It’s to the great credit of playwright Mark E. Leib that he packs all that into a brisk two acts in When the Righteous Triumph. The world premiere at Stageworks is masterfully directed by Christopher Jackson. 

It’s a remarkable work, and an important one – especially at a time when African American history is marginalized and even banned from our schools. While Leib doesn’t shirk at showing the ugliness of the era’s bigotry, he also shines a light on a Civil Rights victory not just for African Americans in Tampa but for the city as a whole. 

Difference in the Details

The history lesson is anything but dry. From the first scene, in which a young Black woman from Atlanta named Roberta Warner (a fiercely good Kelli Vonshay) sits down and orders at the Woolworth’s counter, the tension is palpable. Jackson’s 11-member cast is fully tuned into one another here. Most of the actors play more than one role. However, their versatility and the clarity of script and direction means we rarely have a problem telling who’s who.

Small, telling details in Lindsay Ellis’s costumes also help distinguish characters, and set designer Jarrod Bray’s authentically detailed diner easily doubles as other locales thanks to Celeste Silby’s artful lighting. A backdrop comprised of period news clippings about “Negro sit-ins” and “Segregation protests” establishes the climate in which the events take place. (In another smart touch, they become a scrim for vintage TV clips.)

A caveat: On the evening I saw the show, actor Derrick Phillips was ill, and the director, Chris Jackson, seamlessly took over his roles. Lenny Agnello will take over for Phillips for the remainder of the run, but it Jackson was amazing. He was frightening as Glen, a Ku Klux Klan leader who intimidates his followers. He was equally believable as Julian B. Lane, the pragmatic young Tampa mayor who helped negotiate an end to the sit-ins. (If your primary association with the name Julian Lane is a park on the Hillsborough, you’ll come away from this play with a new perspective.)

Commentary on the Present

Two of my favorite scenes imagine the negotiations organized by Lane between Reverend Leon A. Lowry, the Tampa NAACP’s revered leader (a magisterial Clay Christopher); Cody Fowler, the white lawyer famed for his willingness to defend African Americans (a shrewd and courtly Jim Wicker); and the lunch-counter owners, represented here by a composite character named Quiller (a perfectly weaselly Mark Burdette). Watching Quiller squirm as Fowler and Lowry dismantle his arguments with logic, scripture and the 14th Amendment (“I don’t even know what that is!” he whines) is a treat.

Another riveting scene encapsulates the clashes over tactics among Black activists. Clarence Fort (an appealing Da’Shayne Harrington) is a young barber and head of NAACP’s nascent youth council. Joseph Dasher (a dynamic Lance Felton) is a 17-year-old firebrand who’s enraged by the NAACP’s non-violent approach. “All that politeness ain’t gettin’ us nowhere,” he tells Fort. After a KKK-corrupted cop (a convincing Chris Plourde) threatens Dasher, telling him to leave town or else, Dasher poses a question to Fort: “You ask yourself this: Why is it they fear Joseph Dasher?! Not you but me. Just why is that?” Their dueling points of view portend the conflicts that would continue to divide crusaders for minority rights into the present day. 

Return to the Counter

Leib mostly avoids the risks of over-explaining (though we get perhaps one too many references to the sit-ins that preceded Tampa’s in Greensboro, NC). And even though the script incorporates speeches by politicians and protest leaders, the narrative rarely lapses into speechifying. (Though it doesn’t seem quite believable that Reverend Lowry’s conversations with his wife would be as scripture-heavy as his sermons.). And a few warnings: You will jump out of your seat at the gunshots that happen late in the play, despite having been notified, and you may be shocked by some of the language — specifically, the horrific racist slurs and dehumanizing threats uttered by Glen and his lackeys (played with a pungent mix of bile and cowardice by James Swallow and Cody Carlson).

Or maybe you won’t be shocked. After all, it’s language we continue to hear and see today.

Which is why I was particularly struck by the final scene of the play. Roberta returns to the Woolworth’s counter after it’s been opened to Black customers, and when she’s congratulated by the waitress who previously spurned her (Holly Marie Weber, by turns rude and solicitous), she replies, “Things are different on the outside. How about on the inside?”

Then, as the lights fade on the diner, she walks downstage and faces us.

Leib’s play takes its title from a speech by Fowler made after an attempt on the lives of Lowry and his wife. “You can’t be a righteous person,” says Fowler, “if you live in an unrighteous society.” While Leib acknowledges that the desegregation of the lunch counters was a “triumph,” he wisely leaves us with the notion that there is still more work to be done.

Full disclosure: The reviewer was Mark Leib’s editor when Leib was the theater critic for Creative Loafing.

When the Righteous Triumph: Stageworks Theatre, 1120 E. Kennedy Blvd., Tampa.  Fri.-Sat., March 24-25 & March 31-Apr. 1 @8 p.m.;  Sat.-Sun., March 25-26 & Apr. 1-2 @3 p.m. stageworkstheatre.org