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Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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Archives for September 22, 2014

It isn’t even past

September 22, 2014 by Terry Teachout

franksplaceTwenty-seven years ago next month, a black-themed half-hour comedy series called Frank’s Place made its debut on CBS. I tuned in the first episode solely because I’d been a fan of WKRP in Cincinnati, one of whose cast members, Tim Reid, was the star of the new show, which was set in modern-day New Orleans. But I liked what I saw very much, and continued to watch Frank’s Place throughout its run.

Except for the racial angle, the premise of Frank’s Place was simple to the point of obviousness: Reid played a middle-class black academic from Boston who inherited a Creole-style restaurant from his father and decided to move to New Orleans to run it. The show itself, however, was radically different in style and tone from most of the other popular sitcoms of the day, WKRP included, for it was an unusually well-written single-camera “dramedy” without a laugh track. Such series are common enough now, but they were rare in 1987, and the fact that Frank’s Place had a mostly black cast made it rarer still.

7b3603e86284a020c7e7f37ce0f4141fNot surprisingly, Reid understood full well what he’d gotten himself into. “Hugh, I think this is brilliant, but it scares hell out of me,” he said to Hugh Wilson, the show’s creator. “I’ve never seen this on television. I’m not sure television is ready for this.” Nor was it: Frank’s Place was cancelled after a single twenty-two-episode season, and today it is known only to TV historians and aging fans.

Frank’s Place has never been released on DVD, but a handful of episodes can be viewed on YouTube. One of them, “Frank Joins the Club,” in which Reid is invited to join an upper-middle-class social club for light-skinned black men, has remained clear in my memory ever since it originally aired:

So far as I know, this episode of Frank’s Place was the first time that the near-unmentionable topic of intraracial prejudice was discussed with any kind of candor on network TV. While I’d read about it in books like The Autobiography of Malcolm X, it wasn’t until I saw “Frank Joins the Club,” which was written by the playwright Samm-Art Williams, that I became aware that it still existed in the black community, and began to grasp how it affected the everyday lives of black Americans.

satchmofeat26Needless to say, I had no earthly idea back in 1987 that I would someday write full-length biographies of Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington that dealt with intraracial prejudice, much less a one-man play about Armstrong and Joe Glaser, his Jewish manager. Still, I rather doubt that I would have written the following speech from Satchmo at the Waldorf in quite the same way had I not seen “Frank Joins the Club”:

Down in New Orleans, them light-skin colored, them Creoles, they think they hot shit, look down on the rest of us like we was dirt. Jelly Roll Morton, he like that. Had that diamond in his front tooth. Used to swan around saying, “Don’t call me colored—I’m one hundred percent French.” But you know what? He still had to eat out back in the kitchen, just like me.

That why I call myself “Louis,” not “Louie.” Mr. Glaser, he call me “Louie.” White folks all call me “Louie.” The announcer here, he call me “Louie” every night before the show. That’s O.K., call me what you want, but I ain’t no goddamn Frenchman, ain’t no Creole, ain’t no “Lou-ie.” I’m black. Black as a spade flush. Woke up black this morning, black when I go to bed, still gonna be black when I get up tomorrow. Don’t like it, you can kiss my black ass.

I’ve never before had occasion to write about Frank’s Place, mainly because it wasn’t until the show turned up YouTube that I was able to confirm the accuracy of my faded memories of its quality. Truth to tell, I was a bit afraid to watch “Frank Joins the Club” for fear of being disillusioned. But it turns out to be as good as I remembered, and having finally seen it for a second time long after the fact, I want to pay a debt. Thank you, Tim Reid, Hugh Wilson, and Samm-Art Williams, for teaching me a lesson about the complexity of race relations in America that I took to heart and never forgot. I hope you get to see Satchmo at the Waldorf someday and find out what you wrought.

* * *

To read Dave Walker’s 2002 New Orleans Times-Picayune feature story about Frank’s Place, go here.

Just because: W.H. Auden recites one of his poems in 1969

September 22, 2014 by Terry Teachout

TV CAMERAW.H. Auden recites his poem “Doggerel by a Senior Citizen” on Dutch TV in 1969:

(This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Monday and Wednesday.)

Almanac: Terence Rattigan on how the young regard the old

September 22, 2014 by Terry Teachout

INK BOTTLE“Why should we expect the young to show us any consideration? Seeing us can only remind them of death. And old people’s diseases. I’m not surprised to see them stay away.”

Terence Rattigan, Separate Tables (courtesy of D.G. Myers)

Terry Teachout

Terry Teachout, who writes this blog, is the drama critic of The Wall Street Journal and the critic-at-large of Commentary. In addition to his Wall Street Journal drama column and his monthly essays … [Read More...]

About

About “About Last Night”

This is a blog about the arts in New York City and the rest of America, written by Terry Teachout. Terry is a critic, biographer, playwright, director, librettist, recovering musician, and inveterate blogger. In addition to theater, he writes here and elsewhere about all of the other arts--books, … [Read More...]

About My Plays and Opera Libretti

Billy and Me, my second play, received its world premiere on December 8 at Palm Beach Dramaworks in West Palm Beach, Fla. Satchmo at the Waldorf, my first play, runs February 24-March 18 at Houston's Alley Theatre in a new production directed by me. For more information, go here. Satchmo … [Read More...]

About My Podcast

Peter Marks, Elisabeth Vincentelli, and I are the panelists on “Three on the Aisle,” a bimonthly podcast from New York about theater in America. … [Read More...]

About My Books

My latest book is Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington, published in 2013 by Gotham Books in the U.S. and the Robson Press in England and now available in paperback. I have also written biographies of Louis Armstrong, George Balanchine, and H.L. Mencken, as well as a volume of my collected essays called A … [Read More...]

The Long Goodbye

To read all three installments of "The Long Goodbye," a multi-part posting about the experience of watching a parent die, go here. … [Read More...]

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