‘Wedding Band’ Off Broadway Review: The Theater Discovers Alice Childress, Again
thewrap.comTrouble in Mind” was big news last season. Her “Wedding Band” is even bigger news this theater season. Eleven years separate the plays by the late Alice Childress; and, in between the two, she wrote a novel, “Like One of the Family,” but not another work for the stage.
The hoopla surrounding the Roundabout’s production of “Trouble” was that Childress’ 1955 play about the rehearsal of a play got scuttled on its way from Off Broadway to Broadway.
When producers asked the playwright to make changes to soften the work’s racial message, she refused. Hence, its Broadway debut was delayed until 2021.The year 1955 is also when Tennessee Williams’ “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” opened on Broadway, and its director, Elia Kazan, insisted that the playwright soften its homosexual message by making the lead male character go straight in the play’s final moments.
Williams complied, the play was a big success, and today, his original ending survives to be performed everywhere.It’s open for debate whether Childress should have pulled a Williams with “Trouble” and agreed to changes in her play.
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