Darius Dotch Photo by Rick Spaulding

Stanley Kipper was a young boy when his father, Obie, and mother, Mary, broke a redline barrier in south Minneapolis. The younger Kipper's play Behind the Sun, co-written, with Laura Drake, tells the true story of his family's ordeal and courage. It also lifts up the stalwart friendship of a Jewish ally who joined forces with the Kipper family; together they changed history. The world premiere of Behind the Sun, directed by Richard D. Thompson, kicks off the 2024-2025 season at History Theatre. The story warrants telling, and the dramatization vividly depicts the swirl of frustration, anger and fear, made tolerable by a current of hope that keeps the Kippers from giving in.

Obie Kipper (Darius Dotch) and Abe Kaplan (Scott Witebsky) became fast friends while serving in the Armed Forces. After the war, Obie returned to his hometown of Hannibal, Missouri, where he had grown up in poverty. Obie married Mary (Charla Marie Bailey) and they moved to Chicago in hope of a better life. When that hope was met with disappointment, they moved to Minneapolis, which was better–to a point. Roadblocks still stood in the way of their dream of a safer and better life for themselves and their son. The real-life Kipper family had two sons, Stanley being one. For dramatic purposes in this play, the two boys are consolidated into one son, named Tyler (Joshaviah Kawala).

Obie works hard for the U.S. Post Office and at a second job in the stockroom of a hardware store–the owner making it clear that Black workers were not to be in front where customers would see them. Mary has a master's degree in education, but has yet to land a teaching job. The obstacle that keeps the Kippers from moving up in the world, like many African American families in Minnesota and around the nation, was redlining.

Despite the barriers inflicted by systemic racism, Obie thinks life in Minnesota is a lot better than Chicago and, he figures, Brooklyn, and so he has persuaded his buddy Abe to move out there. The two men are as close as brothers, sharing the pleasures of baseball and cold beers, and the woes of the racism and antisemitism that dog them. When the play opens, Abe has met and married a small-town girl, Angela (Jane Froiland), and the two are de facto Uncle and Auntie to Tyler.

Conditions in their neighborhood and Tyler's school finally get too difficult for Obie and Mary to tolerate. They conspire with Abe and Angela to purchase a house across the red line. Their scheme puts all of them at risk, and exposes Abe to a realtor's (James Ramlet) antisemitism masquerading as open-mindedness. That they succeed is a matter of historical record, commemorated with a plaque in front of the very real south Minneapolis house the Kippers were finally able to call their own. However, the Kippers endured a painfully unwelcoming reception from their neighbors, something one suspects descendants of those neighbors who might be in the audience would be ashamed to acknowledge.

The playwrights have clearly told the story so that anyone sitting through Under the Sun should leave informed of the insidious injustice of redlining, the ploy used by the Kippers and Kaplans to break through it, and the continued struggles faced by those who pioneered desegregating "whites only" neighborhoods. Historical figures and events of the times are noted, placing the Kippers' ordeal in the context of a national civil rights movement. The story is enlivened by its appealing and well-played characters. A detour into Obie's family heritage linked to Mardi Gras, represented by a colorfully decorated heirloom staff, adds vibrancy and attests to the strength he draws from his roots.

Nonetheless, much of the play feels plodding, with Obie, Mary, and Tyler talking about their most recent indignity, rather than depicting those indignities so that we share viscerally in their outrage. The setting, too, limits much of the action to sitting around the dining room table, or sitting in front of the TV in the living room. The most compelling scenes are those in which action occurs–the encounters that Abe and Angela, and later Obie and Ab, have with the bigoted realtor, particularly the scene in which the Kippers are placed under siege in their own home. This last scene is especially gripping, the kind of moment that causes an audience to hold its collective breath.

Darius Dotch is outstanding throughout as Obie Kipper, and in the scene described above, he rises to heroic proportions, crying out to those unseen people who are terrorizing his family, "I will never back down! I am made of steel!" It is powerfully written and just as powerfully acted. Charla Marie Bailey, as Mary, is well matched with Dotch. She conveys a mother's ferocity for the wellbeing of her child, the need to exert a steadying hand on a husband who can get carried away with his dreams, and the frustration of a qualified woman who has been denied her rightful opportunity in the workplace.

Scott Witebsky is completely winning as Abe, effusive with good humor, fiercely loyal to his friend, and a doting "uncle" to Tyler, all delivered with a well-honed Brooklyn accent. Joshaviah Kawala, as Tyler, playing younger than his actual years, expresses a child's innocence, then shows it being chipped away as Tyler encounters the cruelties of the world. The role of Angela is relatively slight, but Jane Froiland comes through as a woman who ditched her small-town mores for a city life enhanced by diversity.

Richard D. Thompson's direction keeps the play moving swiftly, and leans into the growing frustration and anger that pushes the Kippers to take an enormous risk. Meghan Kent's costumes are authentic to the mid-1950s era. Katherine Horowitz's sound and Karin Olson's lighting serve the production well, and are especially vital in the play's climactic scene. Rick Polenek's design for the Kippers' homes is modest and tidy, as we would expect of the couple, though it would have been good to differentiate more between their first and second home–perhaps swapping the dining and living rooms–to underscore the fact of them having moved.

The title, Behind the Sun, comes from a song that has special meaning to Mary, and which she sings to Tyler to avow the strength and endurance of her love for him and all that is precious to her. It is a lovely notion, though I admit to having difficulty understanding what it actually means to draw your love from "behind the sun." Fortunately, the play's impact does not depend on understanding this.

History Theatre continues its commendable work of commissioning plays that dramatize the forces that shaped our region, people who played particular roles in the life of Minnesota and the upper Midwest, and aspects of the culture, whether serious or light-hearted, that bring a unique flavor to our corner of the world. Behind the Sun is a welcome addition to that repertoire, brought dynamically to life by Darius Dotch's stirring performance.

Behind the Sun runs through October 13, 2024, at History Theatre, 30 East 10th Street, Saint Paul MN. For tickets and information, please call 651-292-4323 or visit historytheatre.com.

Playwrights: Stanley Kipper and Laura Drake; Director: Richard D. Thompson; Scenic Design: Rick Polenek; Costume Design: Meghan Kent; Lighting Design: Karin Olson; Sound Design: Katherine Horowitz; Properties Design: Kirby Moore; Intimacy Coach: Elizabeth M. Desotelle; Stage Manager: Laura Topham; Assistant Stage Manager: Abigail Lienhard.

Cast: Charla Marie Bailey (Mary Kipper), Darius Dotch (Obie Kipper), Jane Froiland (Angela Kaplan), Joshaviah Kawala (Tyler Kipper), James Ramlet (Merle Swanson), Scott Witebsky (Abraham Kaplan).