Toni Morrison’s debut novel is getting a theatrical adaptation

This week, GBH Arts Editor Jared Bowen discusses an artist-led movement to end US intervention in Central America and a theatrical adaptation of Toni Morrison’s debut novel.

On view at Tufts University Aidekman Art Center and SMFA through April 24, 2022

In the 1980s, as Americans became increasingly aware of the role played by the American government in the conflicts in Central America, a vast network of artists sprang into action. They used art to protest. But then the movement became a moment — largely forgotten, until now. Art for the Future: Artists Call and Central American Solidarities, a two-part exhibition at Tufts University Art Galleries, examines the legacy of the Artists Call Group.

Five years in the making, Art for the Future is as much an excavation as an exhibition. “So we’re just beginning to understand again, because this is the first time it’s been revisited since the 1980s on what happened in the effort involved here,” Bowen said. “You have to, also think about doing the math, a lot of the artists who were young and were hitting the streets at the time are now in their 60s and 80s. And so it’s kind of a waning time to really understand their stories. and document that.

On view at the Calderwood Pavillion until April 9, 2022

The Huntington Theater Company presents the theatrical adaptation of Toni Morrison’s debut novel, ‘The Bluest Eye’.

“The Bluest Eye” tells the story of Pecola Breedlove, a young black girl in 1940s Ohio, who thinks that if she could just have blue eyes, the whole world would be different for her. That she would be seen differently. Morrison was reluctant to have her work adapted for stage and screen. This is an exception she made, allowing the playwright, Lydia Diamond, to create this play.

The performance features a rounded theater with bleachers on stage, which Bowen says is essential to this play.

“In the past, I thought sometimes it was kind of a gimmick, but it’s not a gimmick…because it puts you in the story,” he said. “You feel that you belong to this community. It is happening around you. You have this intimacy.

T Charles Erickson Photography

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