Stephon Clark was standing in his grandmother’s backyard with a cell phone in his hand. Tamir Rice was playing with a toy gun in a park. In the play “Good Bad People.” Amiri Johnson was taking out the garbage at the homeless shelter where he lived. According to a study published in the medical journal Pediatrics, Black youths are six times more likely to be shot to death by police.
Rather than focus on the institutional racism that frequently gives rise to cases like these, “Good Bad People” shines a light on the grief experienced by the family members left behind.
“Ten or 15 other times, you’ve seen that same family standing in front of a microphone or crying on the television set, and somehow, we don’t see them,” observed Director Sonya McCarter. “We don’t really see their pain. We don’t really see the destruction that the tragedy has caused, and I think that that’s an injustice, and part of the reason why Rachel [Lynett] wrote this story, particularly the way that she did, focusing on the family and effects of that tragedy.”
The emotions on display in “Good Bad People” are raw and unvarnished. The characters are imperfect and emotionally distraught. Rather than rally around each other, they revisit old grievances.
To help her cast understand what this family is going through, McCarter brought in someone who had personally experienced this type of loss.
“There’s a lady who is in my church and she had the experience of losing her son tragically here in Southwest Florida so I invited her to come to our rehearsal and to share her experience of not only the tragedy of what happened to her son, how she dealt with the press, how she dealt with those who were connected to the murder,” said McCarter. “She came, she shared her story and it really helped inform our actors on those steps of grief and how a family really dealing with this tragedy, how they respond.”
That consultant was Angela McClary.
“My son and his brother were murdered June the 7th, 2014, in Fort Myers,” said McClary, tugging at the gold charm at the end of her necklace that bears his photograph.
The case remains unsolved.
In the aftermath of the murders, McClary left her job of 36 years to serve as a victims’ advocate.
In 2016, she established a local chapter of the National Organization of Parents of Murdered Children. In this capacity, she works with grieving parents and the Fort Myers Police Department’s Group Violence Intervention Team.
She also shares her story in classrooms as a substitute teacher.
In her estimation, “Good Bad People” rings true to life.
“It’s pretty much a lot what they go,” McClary acknowledged. “You have so many personalities being tugged one way or another.”
“Good Bad People” is at the Laboratory Theater of Florida through Feb. 8.
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“Good Bad People” opens during the aftermath of the death of Amiri Johnson, a 23-year-old Black man living in Los Angeles who was shot by a police officer while taking out the trash. His sister June returns home to help her family and finds that her father has disappeared, her mother is refusing to leave her bedroom, and her sister Audra is doing everything in her power to control public perceptions of Amiri’s death. Old resentments begin to boil over as the three women attempt, in very different ways, to negotiate their private grief against the public outrage that Amiri’s death has sparked.
“So this play is basically about a family and how they deal with the loss of a loved one who is tragically and unjustly killed,” said Director Sonya McCarter. “Everyone deals with grief in a different way, but for this particular family, the fact that they’re not only dealing with a wrongful death, but also the publicity, and the press, and everyone having their opinion, it can be kind of overwhelming. So [the play’s about] all of the things that surround the death of their son and brother.”
McCarter observed that in cases like these, the family is often lost or overlooked in the effort to demonize the shooting victim and villainize the officer who committed the shooting. Both McCarter and Angela McClary also focused on the role the media plays in exacerbating both ends of this dark spectrum.
For McClary, this process begins with the victim’s photograph, which often criminalizes them or depicts them in an unflattering, thuggish manner.
In “Good Bad People,” the reporter, Lucy (played by Emilie Baartman) does the opposite. She tries to paint a rosier picture of the shooting victim in order to prevent him from being demonized.
“I think Lucy’s intentions are good,” said McCarter. “She wants to help, but a lot of the times, people have their own ideas of what helping is, and in this moment, for this family, the way that she wants to help is not what they need and, unfortunately, she’s not listening to what they need. She’s only moving forward with what she feels will bring justice and attention to the situation. In this moment, that’s not what they want.”
Yale Drama Prize winner Rachel Lynett wrote the play. McCarter appreciates the play’s many nuances and subplots, especially the ways in which media attention, public perception and the desire for social justice interfere with the family’s ability to progress through the five stages of grief.
“We know that there are steps, there are levels, and we all know that we deal with grief differently,” McCarter added. “However, it just seems sometimes when these types of tragedies happen, [the media and the public] expect the family to behave and act in a certain way and not have the time to deal with what has happened in their own way without having to make a statement right away, without having to go and stand in front of a camera. They have the right to grieve in whatever way they need to. And sometimes we don’t give them the space to do that.”
The cast consists of Renee Freeman in the role of Miriam, Delisa Smith as Audre, Loyse Michel as June, Emilie Baartman as the reporter, Lucy, and Chloe Elliot-Chan as Camille.
The Laboratory Theater of Florida staged a Zoom production of this play during the pandemic.
“There's something captivating about seeing a story play out on stage that sparks more questions than it answers,” McCarter said. “It really makes you think, challenges your views, and invites you to empathize with others, even if just for a little while. ‘Good Bad People’ dives into the tough topic of losing a loved one in a racially charged incident, pushing us to reflect on how society's take on that tragedy shapes our own experience of it.”
While McClary’s son was not killed by police, she has consulted with many families who have experienced a police shooting.
The Group Violence Intervention Unit was created incident to a 2019 study that the Fort Myers Police Department conducted with John Hopkins University. The GVI has two sub-groups. One focuses on dangerous group activities; the other is their Juvenile Delinquency Interdiction Unit. The latter supports young people who are in and out of jail, trying to set them on a better path. Data from the FBI and Florida Department of Law Enforcement suggests that these programs may be having the desired effect. Crime in Fort Myers is down 37.5% since 2019.
Support for WGCU’s arts & culture reporting comes from the Estate of Myra Janco Daniels, the Charles M. and Joan R. Taylor Foundation, and Naomi Bloom in loving memory of her husband, Ron Wallace.