By Charlene Baldridge

“Wow!” is all one has to say about what might have been. And also, “How fortunate that history has a chance to rectify the wrong that was done.”

Dedicated to women playwrights and theater artists, Moxie Theatre discovered Alice Childress’s 1955 off-Broadway play titled, “Trouble in Mind,” which has an interesting history to say the least. It plays through Feb. 22.

We all think of Lorraine Hansberry’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “Raisin in the Sun” as the first play written by an African-American woman to reach Broadway (1959). What most don’t know is that the Obie Award-winning “Trouble in Mind,” but for demanding producers and a stubborn playwright, would have been the first to make it to the Great White Way.

The play within “Trouble In Mind,” titled “Chaos in Belleville,” is a melodrama set in the South that concerns a lynching. As it is rehearsed, friction occurs between white producers and the director and the largely African American company. Prior to the intended Broadway move of “Trouble in Mind,” producers insisted on a happier ending (likely one that put the powerful in a better light) and a change in title. Childress refused. Hence, the play was largely forgotten until recently. It is much performed at major regional theaters.

Directed by Moxie Founding Artistic Director Delicia Turner Sonnenberg, “Trouble in Mind” is fast moving and involves nine characters at loggerheads, the most fascinating and fractious are the intractable leading lady Wiletta Mayer (Monique Gaffney) and the implacable director Al Manners (Ruff Yeager), surely two of San Diego’s most accomplished actors.

Other characters are the memory-challenged theater custodian (Tom Kilroy), a young actor in his first important role (Vimel Sephus), Millie, the ingénue (Cashae Monya), a seasoned black actor (Victor Morris, whose speech about a lynching he witnessed is chilling), the well-meaning white cast member, Judy Sears (Samantha Ginn, the height of subtle, comic cluelessness), the browbeaten stage manager (Justin Lang), and Judy’s character’s father in the play-within-the play (Nick Young).

The comedy proceeds from character and the characters are splendidly portrayed. Wiletta and Millie, particularly, are coming off years of portraying maids and servants with floral or gemstone names. They are eager to be seen as major characters by then contemporary audiences.

Adding to the enjoyment is Angelica Ynfante’s impeccably detailed set, the backstage of a Broadway theater in 1957. Eye candy fashions are created by Jacinda Johnston-Fischer, adorning female and male bodies alike, with the prizewinner being Gaffney’s era-appropriate, draped floral number in Act II. Missy Bradstreet is the wig designer, her most characterful being Ginn’s peek-a-boo blond tresses. Sherrice Mojgani is responsible for lighting and Rachel LeVine for sound.

Even beyond its historical significance, “Trouble in Mind” is a true find and a marvelous vehicle for the prodigious talents on display here.

—Charlene Baldridge has been writing about the arts since 1979. Follow her artistic endeavors at charlenebaldridge.com. She can be reached at [email protected].