Buffalo Films: Adaptation of Amiri Baraka play extends story, with Stephen McKinley Henderson in key role

By M. Faust
(Images above: André Holland and Kate Mara; Stephen McKinley Henderson)

If you missed The Dutchman at the recent tribute to Stephen McKinley Henderson at the Buffalo International Film Festival or at its brief theatrical run, it is now available for streaming on Prime Video, Apple TV and other services. It has another Buffalo connection, having been adapted from the Obie-winning 1964 play by former UB professor Amiri Baraka.

“Adaptation” may not be exactly the right word for this film by André Gaines, best known for his documentaries about Jesse Owens, Dick Gregory and Jackie Robinson. Baraka’s allegorical one-act drama takes place entirely in a Manhattan subway car and features two characters, a middle-class young black man and a white woman who alternately tempts and torments him. Gaines and co-scripter Qasim Basir re-envision this as a contemporary story as well as a more cinematic one (the play runs under an hour.) In doing so they had the blessing of Baraka (credited as an executive producer), who died in 2014.

The film stars André Holland (Moonlight) as Clay, a successful businessman working on a Harlem gentrification project. We are introduced to him and his wife Kaya (Zazie Beetz) during a session with their therapist, Dr. Amiri (Henderson). The topic, which clearly troubles Clay, is a one-time infidelity committed by his wife. She regrets it, but he can’t get past it.

Dr. Amiri recommends that Clay read something that he says greatly helped him and gives him a copy of the play. From this point the film recreates (and expands) the action of the play while also paying tribute to it as a seminal literary work of continued relevance for its themes of contemporary black men’s struggle for identity in a racist society.

The film is quasi-realistic, at times seeming to borrow from Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. As Clay struggles through his long night of the soul in which he can’t shake Lula (Kate Mara), the woman he meets on the subway, Henderson occasionally pops up as other minor characters. So do clips from the straightforward film of the play that was made in 1966. (You can find it on various streaming sites.)

For his debut outside the documentary genre, Gaines shows a strong command of his art, from striking Harlem and Manhattan locations to an arresting score. Most importantly, he has a cast that is up to the shifting demands of the script. It’s open to debate whether this film will appeal more to viewers who know the original play or those unfamiliar with it, but then debate is clearly the goal here.