‘A Song for Coretta’ plays at Vintage Theatre through May 4

The Vintage Theatre brings together two pieces surrounding the life and influence of Coretta Scott King in their plays Letters directed by Mark Ivan Branche, and A Song for Coretta, directed by Pat Payne, which will run until May 4.

Letters is a shorter production comprised of letters written by Martin Luther King Jr., to his wife. Played by Andre D. Hickman, Martin relates to the audience how he met Coretta. Lisa Young plays Coretta, and while her lines are mostly reading Martin’s letters, her tears are real as she hears about his death.

Although Letters shows you a more moving picture of the relationship between Martin and Coretta, the timeline between the letter writing and story telling from Martin gets confusing.

A Song for Coretta takes place at the time of Coretta’s death. Five women are all waiting in line to have one last chance to say goodbye to here. Young plays Helen Richards in this production, the only one of the five who actually met Coretta.

Each of the five women has a story to tell about the trouble in their lives from trying to get news stories to teenage pregnancy. But even the uppity, funny characters like Keisha Cameron played by Ilasiea  Gray, cannot stop the play from going down a more depressing road.

Two of the women, Gwendolyn Johnson played by ShaShauna Staton, and Mona Lisa Martin played by Josephine Lemon-Lett, have stories of struggle that break your heart in two. They have come to ask Coretta for forgiveness, Gwendolyn for the war crimes she witnessed and Mona Lisa for the death of her grandmother during Hurricane Katrina.

Once the play becomes sad it attempts to become more upbeat and uplifting at the end, but there’s no coming back.

A Song for Coretta and Letters both touch on the lives of strong players in the fight for Civil Rights. They both paint a picture of Coretta as a woman of courage who did just as much as her famed husband Martin Luther King Jr.