Riffing on the inner life of Richard Pryor in ‘Unspeakable’

Actor-writer-producer James Murray Jackson, Jr. – whose play, “Unspeakable,” billed as “a dramatic fantasia inspired by the life of comedic legend Richard Pryor,” has its Chicago premiere Oct. 13 at the Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place – first discovered Pryor as a kid, when he caught two of the actor-comedian’s hit movies from the early 1980s, “The Toy” and “Stir Crazy,” on TV. He was hooked.

Although Jackson’s dad was a fan of the comedian, he wouldn’t allow his son to listen to his fabled concert performance, “Richard Pryor: Live on the Sunset Strip.” Luckily, his uncles played tapes of Pryor’s concerts on the 8-tracks in their cars, so he caught bits of his routines.

“I especially remember the one about “Cops don’t shoot cars, they shoot [the “n” word],” said Jackson, now 44, calling out a line from an early 1980s riff that suggests just how unfiltered and ahead of his time Pryor was.

‘UNSPEAKABLE’

When: Now in previews; opens Oct. 13, and runs through Nov. 8

Where: Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place, 175 E. Chestnut

Tickets: $35 – $79

Info: (800) 775-2000; http://www.BroadwayInChicago.com

Run time: 2 hours and 30 minutes, with one intermission

Fast forward to Jackson’s college years when the Corpus Christi native attended Texas A&M University, majoring in, of all things, agricultural economics.

“I didn’t know what I wanted to do in life and was having trouble getting through school when, out of nowhere, a friend came up to me and said: ‘Let’s do a musical.’ I had never even seen a musical at that point, and all I could say was ‘I won’t wear tights.’ Three weeks later I was standing in the back of the chorus in a production of ‘Les Mis.’ And a few months later I auditioned for a production of ‘Of Mice and Men,’ and was cast as Crooks [a bitter but educated stable worker].”

But it was only when Jackson was lucky enough to chat with Denzel Washington while working as an extra in the film “Courage Under Fire” (which was shot in Texas and used ROTC cadets from Texas A&M in some of the training camp scenes), that he figured out where he wanted to be as an actor.

“Denzel asked me: ‘Do you want to be an actor or a movie star?’ And then he said: ‘If you want to be an actor go to New York, get on a stage, and learn your craft’.”

That’s just what Jackson did. And for his portrayal of Richard Pryor in the 2005 New York International Fringe Festival production of “Unspeakable” – a play for 10 actors co-authored and directed by Rod Gailes OBC – Jackson received the Festival’s Outstanding Lead Actor Award.

“I started working on this play back in 2001, when Richard was still alive but very ill [he suffered from multiple sclerosis, and died of a heart attack in 2005],” recalled Jackson. “After his death, I contacted his widow, Jennifer Lee, who was trying to get a movie made about him, so the rights to his material were not available. I decided to take a different approach. I thought: Okay, I can’t use his comedy, but the play is not about that. It’s about all the things that generated that comic effect even when he was talking about his traumatic childhood, and racism, and setting himself on fire. It’s about putting all the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle together.”

It was Jackson’s co-writer who finessed the concept of “creating comedy written in the voice of Pryor, but not using his words.”

“‘Unspeakable’ is a non-linear piece, but the bulk of the play is set between 1967 and 1982,” said Jackson. “You even see Richard in the womb [he was born in 1940 in Peoria, Il., a town that was an important stop on the black and white vaudeville circuits], and then we follow him from about six to 10 years of age when he was being raised by his grandmother.”

“The play is a mix of research and truth, plus imagination, and it’s all happening in Richard’s mind. He does talk about a night out on the town with Bill Cosby, but beyond that he mostly just mentions names of those he knew – Miles Davis, Redd Foxx, James Brown, Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. We use the obscenities, and we talk about the cocaine, because you couldn’t do Richard Pryor without that.”

“The truth is, I could do 15 plays about Richard, and how he came right in the pocket of the Vietnam War and all the movements of the early 1970s – Civil Rights, Black Power, Feminism – and how he was able to say things that black people, and even white people, didn’t say. He understood that America was newly open to hearing the voice of black Americans, and he was not afraid of expressing himself. He sensed that if you stood on stage with a microphone, as long as you were funny people were okay with it. And my job is not to imitate him, but to channel his incredible energy.”

The cast, all of whom play multiple roles, includes Chicago actors E. Faye Butler, Lamar N. Barnes, Ebony Joy and Akilah Perry, Taryn Reneau, Chris Amos, Kierra Bunch, Ginneh Thomas Ronald L. Conner.

Jackson confessed he has never done standup comedy himself, but nervously added: “It’s part of the plan for my off-nights in Chicago.”

NOTE: This production is recommended for audiences 16 years of age and older.