TimeLine’s ‘Too Heavy for Your Pocket’ tests the bonds of friendship, sacrifice

Most of us have seen the photos: Freedom Riders under siege by firehoses, police dogs, bombs and white mobs. Jireh Breon Holder’s “Too Heavy for Your Pocket” reveals the costs the cameras couldn’t catch.

Set in 1961, the TimeLine Theatre’s production takes a long look at the economics of revolution and the steep price it exacts from those who could least afford it.

For Bowzie (Jalen Gilbert), joining the Freedom Riders means a life-changing sacrifice before the bus even leaves the station. His scholarship to Fisk University won’t wait for the Riders to desegregate lunch counters and bathrooms with their nonviolent sit-ins. Bowzie’s choice: Walk away from a cause he passionately supports, or walk away from every dream the scholarship represents to a struggling, unemployed “country” man who would be the first in his family to attend college.

Bowzie’s wife Evelyn (Ayanna Bria Bakari) is enraged and frustrated by her husband’s decision to ride from their Nashville home into the Deep South. She’s been supporting both of them as a singer. College was supposed to lead her husband to a good job and a chance for her to feel cared for. And Evelyn points out he could be killed.

But this isn’t just Bowzie and Evelyn’s story. Holder has a bigger picture in mind. “Too Heavy” is also the story of a seminal moment in the fight for civil rights, filtered through lenses of gender and class. Bowzie’s best friend Tony (Cage Sebastian Pierre) and Tony’s pregnant wife Sally Mae (Jennifer Latimore) also will be profoundly affected financially and emotionally by his actions.

Director Ron OJ Parson’s richly realized production leaves plenty to ponder. As it winds on, “Too Heavy for Your Pocket” becomes fractured. On one side, it’s a domestic drama. On another, it’s a commentary on the staggering price activists pay financially and emotionally. The issues compete with each other for dominance, to the play’s detriment.

It’s also limited by Holder’s reliance on letters. Bowzie spends most of the second half reading aloud, delivering an epistolary version of events we don’t see happen. It’s a violation of a fundamental rule of drama — show, don’t tell. Despite that, Gilbert’s raw, anguished delivery is inarguably compelling.

It is especially so when Bowzie lands in a notorious Alabama prison, where once again class factors in. Unlike most of his Freedom Rider colleagues, Bowzie can’t make bail. His isolation and mental deterioration are painful to watch. Money, it’s said, can’t buy happiness. But tell that to someone languishing in prison, unable to make bail.

Bakari makes Evelyn’s plight is equally vivid. At one point, she appears in a scarlet gown to deliver a haunting song about a bird with a broken wing. It’s a scene that simultaneously fits into the plot and seems to hover on another plane entirely, commenting on the action below. It’s one of several scenes that are almost impressionistic. Parson isolates the actors in pools of amber and blue (glorious work by lighting designer Maggie Fullilove-Nugent), breathing deeply, as if trying to center the core of their being.

As Bowzie’s best friend and Sally Mae’s wife, Pierre is wholly — and somewhat shockingly — believable when he dismisses the Freedom Riders as much ado about nothing (“Educated Negroes will find anything to be riled up about,” he says) and when he ultimately shows his true colors as a friend.

If there’s an anchor to “Too Heavy for Your Pocket,” it is Latimore’s Sally Mae, as graceful as a willow and as strong as an oak. Latimore makes it clear that Sally Mae suffers no fools and doesn’t back down from confrontation even when it means tongue-lashing the people she loves the most. Only Sally supports Bowzie’s drive. There’s compassion in her reaction, and it resonates through the prayerful monologue that closes the play and reveals the meaning of its descriptive title.

The production benefits immensely from costume designer Alexia Rutherford’s fashion-show-worthy, period-perfect dresses — bright, luminous creations that fill the stage like flowers.

José Manuel Díaz-Soto’s set design pulls all the disparate elements together, making Tony and Sally Mae’s kitchen a worn but homey place with the warmth of a nest. As the site of bitter fights and heartfelt reconciliations, the set grounds “Too Heavy” with a sense of home and security — even when the world around and within it are in upheaval.

Catey Sullivan is a freelance writer.