Queen Cicely by Lisa B. Thompson

Queen Cicely

by Lisa B. Thompson | @DrLisaBThompson | special to NewBlackMan (in Exile)

My family watched television together after dinner on nights when my father came home early. My brother and I sat on pillows on the floor in front of our new color RCA TV because the sofa was for Mommy and Daddy only. One night in 1972 I was mesmerized by the diminutive, angular face of dark-skinned Black woman on the screen. I’ll never forget Cicely Tyson in the television adaptation of the Ernest Gaines novel The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. It was the first time I saw a Black woman performing on television in a drama. It was a watershed moment for my consciousness. She held my attention like you hold your breath when you’re expecting a surprise. The surprise was her. Regal, beautiful, and substantive. 

Ms. Tyson was not like most of the Black women I’d seen in countless movies before. Sometimes those images made my face burn and confused me because they did not remind me of the Black women I knew and loved like my grandmother, aunts, and mother. I remain amazed by Cicely Tyson’s transcendent depiction of a Black southern woman suffering from the worst of white supremacy. She did the same thing in every role she took. Ms. Tyson imbued each performance with such dignity, elegance, and strength that even Black women with very little cultural or financial capital appeared rich and powerful in the ways that matter most. 

Everyone is astounded by Cicely Tyson’s prolific and award-winning film and television career, and I am too, but as a playwright I’m particularly inspired by the way she commanded the stage. Tyson was luminescent on and off-Broadway as she built her career working alongside other icons of Black theatre. She starred in Jean Genet’s The Blacks along with James Earl Jones, and in Tiger Tiger Burning Bright along with Alvin Ailey, Al Freeman Jr., Diane Sands, and Roscoe Lee Brown. She received her first honor as an actor in 1962, a Drama Desk Award for her performance in Moon on a Rainbow Shawl by Trinidadian actor-playwright Errol John. 

In I 2013 I was fortunate to see Cicely Tyson on Broadway in The Trip to Bountiful. I arrived early for the matinee and settled into my seat. Two older Black women sat behind me and proceeded to eat full meals during the show. I must admit I’m one of those theatre goers who expects complete silence during plays and musicals. Theaters are temples to me. I’m known to cast a steely eye at an errant audience member but these women ignored my chastising glances. They weren’t some pretentious theatre critics measuring the play against the original film. 

Those Black women showed up for the best reason there was, Cicely Tyson. Those women taught me (as they ate their lunches as if they were sitting the church’s fellowship hall) that although Tyson was a legend, more than anything she was ours. No stifling Broadway mores would dictate the terms of their audience with the queen. When Ms. Tyson began to sing the Christian hymn Blessed Assurance, the audience joined in and she welcomed us with open arms. I knew then that I was watching more than a Broadway play, I was witnessing one of the finest to grace the stage deliver a master class. Ms. Tyson won her first Tony for that role at the age of 88.

Cicely Tyson was both queen and quotidian. Regal and regular. Yes, she could sport a devastating bob, flawless skin, and fierce couture for the Gawds, but she was always accessible, always ours. She felt like your mother, auntie, sister, or grandmother. She knew us and loved us. Ms. Tyson took all of our triumphs, our worries, our joys, and our devastations and presented them before the world with the sacredness it deserves. I never had the opportunity to meet her in person but I suspect that she always carried a piece of hard candy, and a handkerchief in her purse for your tears along with a good word about following your dreams. I’m most grateful to Cicely Tyson for showing a skinny, dark-skinned, 7-year-old Black girl what is possible if you own and share your gifts.

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Lisa B. Thompson is a playwright and professor of African and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Her new book is Underground, Monroe, and The Mamalogues: Three Plays.