A GENUINE HIT: Talking with Brian Copeland on the Los Angeles return of his smash one-man show "Not a Genuine Black Man"

By Terry Keefe

In 1971, the Bay Area city of San Leandro was regarded as one of the most racist suburbs in America, to the point that Congressional hearings were actually held about it. The next year, 8-year old African-American Brian Copeland moved there with his family. That experience forms the spine of “Not a Genuine Black Man,” Copeland’s one-man show which returns to the Hudson Theater tonight for a limited run. The longest-running one-man show in San Francisco history, “Not a Genuine Black Man” previously played to sold-out houses nightly in Los Angeles in 2006, following a lengthy Off-Broadway run. The remaining performances in Los Angeles, at the Hudson Theater, are tonight, and then on November 18, 19, 25, & 26. Tickets can be obtained at Plays411.com. The Hudson Theater can also be reached by phone at 323-856-4200. It is located at 6539 Santa Monica Blvd. in Los Angeles.

Copeland is also a successful comic, who has opened for the likes of Donna Summer and Aretha Franklin. He hosts his own weekly radio program, "The Brian Copeland Show", on ABC radio affiliate KGO. His print adaptation of “Not a Genuine Black Man: My Life as an Outsider” recently came out in paperback and can be purchased here through Amazon.

As you industry folks who read these pages may have guessed, Copeland’s show is also a natural for adaptation to television, and that process is well underway.

You’ve been doing "Not a Genuine Black Man" for a few years now. Has the show changed at all during that time due to current events or events in your personal life?

Brian Copeland: Not really. I see it as a play, and so, I’m going to be leaving it as it is now. When I first started with the show, I did hone it, and workshop it, and I finally got it to where I wanted it. Then we did 100 performances Off-Broadway and we did, in fact, do some changes there. But then I put it back the way it was, prior to Off-Broadway, when I brought it back to California. See, I had received the greatest review in the history of the Los Angeles Times, and I didn’t want to be reviewed ever again [laughs].

Let’s go back a bit then and talk about the origins of “Not a Genuine Black Man.”

The whole idea came about from a conversation I had with Carl Reiner. See, I do a once-a-week radio show. I’m a comic-writer-actor, but radio is something I do once a week. It’s my chance to bitch to 100,000 people [laughs]. My friends joke that I’m just doing on the radio now the same thing I’ve been doing for years with them [laughs]. It’s also a great forum to meet my heroes. And Carl Reiner is one of my idols. He was in town and we had him on the show, and I got to interview him. In my own life, at that time, I found myself as a divorced dad with three young kids. I was thinking, “Now what do I do?” Creatively, I knew that I wanted to write a one-man show, but something that was different than stand-up. I truthfully had never done anything all that personal and meaningful on stage, and I had no idea how to begin. So, there I was with Carl on the show [laughs]. He said to me, “Every writer and performer has been at the crossroads where you are now. You have to find a piece of ground that you alone stand on. In 1959, I also was asking, ‘What do I do with myself?’ For 18 years, I had dealt with the network hell of 20 executives going over every script I ever wrote. And that was my own piece of ground.” Out of that, Carl Reiner created "The Dick Van Dyke Show". Now, a week after that interview with Carl Reiner, I get this letter in the mail, from a listener, saying that I’m “not a genuine black man.” This has been something I’ve been hearing all my life, and I get it more from black people. After I received that letter, I went down this whole litany of things about myself [in regards to that accusation.] I do like to Tivo "Frasier". I think of the word “axe” as a noun. But I can’t get a cab. Am I black enough? [laughs] I also spent my youth as the only black face in the room, when I grew up in San Leandro, which borders Oakland, but in the 70s was considered one of the most racist, white flight destinations in the country. So, with all of this in mind, I sat at this little café near my house and wrote, in one of those marble compilation notebooks, every story I could think of, about being the only black person in the room. There were so many things I had forgotten about, like the housing discrimination laws. But these weren’t just stories about being black, there were themes of isolation that came out, and I’m very candid in the show about a suicidal depression I had in the 90s. After about 8 months of writing, David Ford came aboard as the director. We showed some of what we had to around 12 people we trusted, and we finished about 2/3rds of the way through, and the audience said, “Oh, you can’t leave us here!” [laughs] We knew we had something then. The first night we ran the show we had 7 people. The next night, there were 14. After that, you couldn’t get in for 2 years.

And you’ve also been working to develop a version of the show for television. Tell us some more about that.

Well, I actually videotaped the show after we were up and running and sent it to Carl Reiner. He said, “This is amazing. You know who should see this? Robby.” And I thought, “Robby Who? Oh, that Robby!” [laughs] Rob Reiner and I were both with the same agency and they sent it to him. He watched it as soon as he received it, and he so got it and where we are in regards to race in America, at the dawn of this new century. Nobody has really had these kinds of discussions about race on television. There are either caricatures or race just isn’t mentioned. On "The Cosby Show", it was never mentioned. We developed the show at Castle Rock, and we had a deal with HBO set up for a series. But enough of my voice didn’t really come through in the show, and I think the format was wrong. The play bounces back between two time periods and we tried to do it as a literal translation. Now I’m working [on an adaptation] with a new writing partner. Although Rob isn’t attached as a producer, he’s been exceedingly supportive. He put me in The Bucket List as well, and he’s hosting the big industry night in L.A. for the 12th. He is such a nice man to do that for me. With the new version, it’s going to be a lot edgier. Barack Obama has asked for a national discussion on race in America and this is part of that. This show is about the black kid in your class, and you all had one. How did he live and how did he survive? You know, when I was doing this Off-Broadway, my biggest audience were actually Holocaust survivors. People would come up to me with tears in their eyes and tell me about the Holocaust. And I finally asked someone why so many survivors were coming to the show. That person said, “Because we walk in a world full of people, but we are all alone.” It’s that aspect of isolation.

Something I wanted to talk about is that when I was creating this show, the rhythms that inspired me were from the Norman Lear shows of the 70s. You’d watch Maude and All in the Family and Good Times, and what was amazing about those shows was…it was really funny and then Edith got raped! I wanted those moments where you’re laughing hysterically and then you’re kicked in the gut. I want to do a Norman Lear show today the way he would if he didn’t have the restraints he was working with, so that we can explore the issues of what divides us and what unites us.

Your paperback is now read in a number of high schools and colleges across the country.

People will send me term papers comparing and contrasting me with Malcolm X [laughs]. I’m a comic, for God’s sake!

Below is a talk that Brian did on "Not a Genuine Black Man" at Google Headquarters. More information on Brian Copeland can be found at his website at http://www.briancopeland.com/.