 AIN’T GOT LONG TO STAY HERE GRABS THE AUDIENCE— AND NEVER LETS THEM GO
Gifted Nashville Actor Re-Creates the Civil Rights Era, Conjures the Spirit of Dr. King, and Leaves a Diverse Crowd Much to Ponder About the True Color of Race Relations
First-time audiences for Barry Scott’s Ain’t Got Long to Stay Here might go into it thinking they’ll be experiencing the performance of a Martin Luther King, Jr., imitator. Without question, this one-man tour de force draws a lot of its strength from King’s key speeches and writings, and, when he wants to, Scott—one of the country’s premier actors, African American or otherwise—is capable of finding and dramatically re-creating the great civil rights leader’s stirring rhythms and powerful exhortations.
But Scott is no imitator. He’s a stage veteran gifted with commanding presence and a flexible voice that can croon as easily as it bellows. He uses his broad range to create diverse characters, both black and white, both comic and deadly serious, that offer a mosaic of those critical days in the 1960s, when the struggle for racial equality became a lightning-rod issue that begat protest, violence, in some cases death, and forced the eyes of America to focus on events in the South.
To his great credit, Scott chooses to give us more than only Martin. It is, after all, more than 40 years since Rev. King won the Nobel Peace Prize, and his historic leadership in places like Montgomery and Selma—not to mention his heroic speechifying—are matters of public record, television documentaries, and the history books now. When Scott raises his voice in Kingly fashion, we certainly get the essence of events such as the March on Washington in 1963 and the fatalism of the minister’s final emotional speech in Memphis in 1968 the night before his assassination. But Scott is ultimately after more in his performance than applause for conjuring a great man’s spirit.
More than anything, Scott is willing his audience to listen and observe, to reflect on what’s historical, and then to allow themselves to honestly feel—to search deeply within and express what it all means to them in the here and now. After the considerable applause dies down—there is plenty of that, and a standing ovation no less—Scott engages his audience directly with a sincere round of questions, surmises, and thoughtful discussion-starters that push the boundaries of response beyond the academic and into our contemporary real lives.
“What do you FEEL?” Scott asks audience members, moving eagerly to and fro and amidst a throng of more than 200 people, seated raptly in Nashville’s Christ Church Cathedral. This simple inquiry successfully rouses responses on all levels, from all quarters. 
“Sadness,” responds a young black woman. “Hopeful,” says an older white woman. A passel of hands go up around the nave of the church, and suddenly it is clear that everyone has been moved by the show, and everyone is struggling to confront the tales that Scott has told through his minor characters as well as through the famous, galvanizing words of the formidable King.
“I feel robbed,” says a young white man, and indeed this outburst seems to ring true for all. Everyone looks around at everyone else now, and one is struck by the very interesting fact that this audience is almost exactly 50-50 black and white. Ain’t Got Long to Stay Here is clearly not one of those ethno-centric programs designed to appeal only to the automatic audience. There’s too much history in what Scott is doing. His scenarios are known by all Americans of every color, economic class and culture. Finally, there’s too much reality.
The hands continue going up, Scott calls on his audience, and one by one, we get glimpses not only into how these disparate people feel about the importance of the civil rights movement but also how they feel about things today in the world at large and in their own lives. One black woman is induced to expound on her beliefs that classism and economic disparity are more divisive in modern-day America than mere racism. Another expresses beliefs that things are better in the modern world where race relations are concerned, then still wonders why we have still further to go.
Scott picks up the thread of this discussion, which pretty generally leaves one with the feeling that the proposition set before us may be a case of the glass being half empty or half full. In any case, rarely does one witness such an uninhibited display of audience volunteerism. Everyone wants—no, it’s more than that: they NEED—to get on record. Spontaneity rules.
Finally, a white middle-aged man stands. He says, without fear, “I feel shamed. I grew up in Mississippi, and I was a young person when all this happened. But I feel shamed that I had no inkling that this was going on at all. I didn’t even become conscious of it till I was much older, and even then I don’t think I understood, or was capable of understanding, what it was all about. What I just saw brought it all into focus for me.”
So there’s another thing that Scott is doing: teaching. He acts; he provokes thought; he teaches. And yet he also does that one thing that every sincerely gifted actor must do: He entertains as well.
Scott’s performance is a solo one all the way, but he’s not completely alone on stage. He has various costumes to accompany his portrayals of preachers, civil rights workers, Alabama cops, Klansmen, and other folks of the era. Rear-screen projections are also there, displaying well-known archival images of King, the movement, the marches for equality, the police brutality, and some of those who died for the cause. The latter include the four young black girls who perished in the 1963 bombing of Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church. Scott delivers excerpts of King’s eulogy on the “democracy of death” over these pictures, and it’s a thoroughly haunting segment.
 Adding to the show’s overall effect is a rich soundtrack of piano and strings, which swells and then pulls back into the background, synchronized to the dynamics of Scott’s performance, which runs about 75 minutes in one single act without intermission.
The post-show talk-back session would run that long as well if Scott had more time. And even when the evening’s been officially called to a halt, folks still line up to shake his hand and talk to him about what they’ve just witnessed.
Ain’t Got Long to Stay Here is, without question, something unique. It is theater that brings to the fore visceral human feeling, but it doesn’t end when the curtain rings down. You get your money’s worth of show business, for sure. But what you also get is a chance to exit the experience feeling enlightened—about one’s own self and about where you stand in the adventuresome pluralistic world of the 21st Century.
“What is past is prologue,” Shakespeare wrote. Ain’t Got Long to Stay Here is a perfect example of that. Never have the words of Dr. King seemed more inspiring, more audaciously correct. Never has the history of a social movement seemed more relevant. “Keep moving forward,” Scott cries, echoing his long-late mentor. “Keep moving forward. Keep moving forward...”
And we do. We will. We must. We have to. Only now, the beacon of self-knowledge that lights the way burns a whole lot brighter.
In Ain’t Got Long to Stay Here, Barry Scott successfully channels Martin Luther King, Jr., and for that we are grateful to the actor. But that’s only part of the story. The rest you have to see to believe. |
