FRATERNITY
After seeing Stetson’s Fraternity, I’m still wondering about his integrity, but now I also have questions about his judgment and common sense. I mean, what kind of playwright would include both a full-length sermon and an entire campaign speech?
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Fraternity is about the two alternatives that, as Stetson sees it, face black people today: they can join the white establishment, or they can hang on to the passion and purpose of the early civil rights movement. Charles Lincoln (Alfred Wilson), a former firebrand who was elected a state senator in the south during the glory days of the civil rights movement, has become more conservative with age, and a bit lazy. The legislature’s seniority system, for example, no longer seems so objectionable to him now that he has some seniority.
In the second act, Stetson employs this device again. This time the back wall opens to reveal Stanton, who delivers a rambling, wordy campaign speech. “It is time that representation meant reflection and leadership, and not exploitation and opportunism,” he says. “I am for you not because you are for me. I am for you because you are me.” Once again, the result is stupefying.
