‘Until the Flood’ reveals shared humanity behind charged headlines

Until the Flood — a play by Dael Orlandersmith at the Milwaukee Repertory Theater that runs through April 22 — powerfully explores the effects of racial divisions within a Midwestern city. 

The playwright performs the entire one-hour drama, which gives voice to people personally affected by the 2014 fatal shooting of Michael Brown by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. Brown was an unarmed black man, and his death was followed by protests that turned violent.

The play was commissioned by the St. Louis Repertory Theater in 2015 to help the community heal, and it was first performed in 2016. 

New Yorker Orlandersmith spent months interviewing people in St. Louis and Ferguson from disparate backgrounds. She then created the play’s eight composite characters.

A consummate actor, Orlandersmith masterfully evokes deeply held feelings and beliefs, embodying individuals across race, gender and occupation. 

Aided by Kaye Voyce’s subtle costume changes — donning a baseball cap, jacket, shawl or prayer scarf — Orlandersmith transitions seamlessly from one monologue to another. She moves from expressing quiet reflection to wonder and dreams of college, to fear, pent-up frustration and rage. 

The stories reveal shared humanity and raise unsettling questions about “staying in your place” and the “legacy of self-hate,” the dilemma of whether to leave or stay in a town, and generationally passed-on beliefs that contribute to continuing segregation and shell-shocked communities. 

The Stiemke Studio production directed by Neel Keller, a longtime collaborator with Orlandersmith, incorporates documentary elements to heighten the play’s context. 

Takeshi Kata’s set meticulously recreates Ferguson vigil offerings, which surround a raft-like floating stage with fraying floorboards. It reads as an island of isolation.

Parallels abound between Ferguson and Milwaukee — and the Rep staff acknowledges that in framing this theatrical experience. 

Hard conversations about the ramifications of extreme segregation and institutional racism are long overdue in Milwaukee, where statistics involving race have not changed much during the past 50 years. 

The shooting of Dontre Hamilton — an African-American man who was sleeping in Red Arrow Park, very near the Rep — as well as unrest in Sherman Park in 2016 following another shooting by a police officer, have likewise made national headlines. 

Each performance will incorporate one local community member briefly responding to the play, as well as the option to participate in facilitated small-group discussions.

As a county, as a city, we have not reconciled centuries of racialized horrors and their ongoing legacies. 

The author Ta-Nehisi Coates has written, “Racism is not merely a simplistic hatred. It is, more often, a broad sympathy toward some and broader skepticism toward others.” 

In Until the Flood, Orlandersmith walks in the shoes of vastly different individuals, presenting diverse voices equally on the same stark platform. 

As is often the case, the most deeply personal accounts resonate universally. These monologues can serve as a springboard for dialogue.

Milwaukee’s artistic community — especially the Rep, Milwaukee Chamber Theater, Next Act Theater, and Renaissance Theater Works — are leading in their thought-provoking presentations of work with challenging themes. They are lighting the way for potential epiphanies.