Sal Capone: The Lamentable Tragedy Of, March 29 to April 2 at Presentation House Theatre, 333 Chesterfield Ave., North Vancouver. Tickets: $28/$20/$15 at phtheatre.org.
About 60 seconds passed between the time the officers stepped out of their police cruiser and the time an officer fired the shot that killed Fredy Villanueva.
He was 18, unarmed, and black.
Eight years later, people are still trying to figure out what transpired in those 60 seconds.
Was Fredy trying to steal the cop’s gun or serve as a peacemaker? Was it a one-in-a-million kind of incident, or something bound to happen in a neighbourhood that increasingly felt like a war zone at night, with cops on one side of the conflict pitted against young black men on the other?
The Montreal shooting inspired looting, riots, and a largely botched investigation into the actions of the officers.
It also inspired Vancouver native Omari Newton, originally from Montreal, to write his first play.
In Sal Capone: The Lamentable Tragedy Of, Newton introduces us to a hip-hop group at the peak of their potential.
That potential is on the verge of disintegrating after a member of the group is killed in a police shooting.
“Sadly, it’s kind of a common occurrence that young black men get into altercations with police, oftentimes, particularly in the (United) States, it ends in a fatality,” Newton explains. “I wanted to tell a story that was universal and encompassed all the frustration I felt.”
The decision to have the group’s DJ be the one to get shot was symbolic, Newton says. Without their DJ, the group has no backbone, no one to keep the tempo.
Speaking to the North Shore News from a slam poetry workshop he’s teaching in Pemberton, Newton talks about the importance of rap music in the play.
“(Telling this story) through the lens of hip hop would just be … a good entry point to understand youth culture and why these situations continue to happen,” he says.
Newton was an emcee in his college days and credits rap group Public Enemy for shaping his political and social consciousness.
Now 36, Newton started writing Sal Capone in his 20s. Since first putting pen to paper, Newton won acting roles on the TV shows Continuum, The X-Files, and Blue Mountain State. He also married the daughter of the former chief of police of Timmins, Ont.
During those writing years, the themes that surrounded the death of Fredy Villanueva became more and more relevant.
“When we started this, the hashtag #blacklivesmatter wasn’t even a thing,” he notes.
The play deals with combustible subject matter, but it’s not a message play.
“I never intended to get a message out through the play,” he says. “I just wanted to tell as honest and nuanced a story as possible and let people make their own opinions.”
Those opinions have run the gamut from outrage on one side of the issue to, on the other side, outrage.
“Ironically, I’ve had more radical activist friends be mad at me and say, ‘Why were you so easy on the cops?’ And I’ve had friends who are police officers say, ‘Why did you write an anti-police play?’”
There are systemic problems that lead to police shootings, Newton says, and one of them is a cultural chasm between the police and the policed.
“There’s a lack of bonds, or links built between many communities and law enforcement,” he says.
Part of what he’s doing with Sal Capone is attempting to allow for a greater understanding of hip-hop culture.
“I recognize the greatness in a great hip-hop album … and a great Shakespearean monologue,” he says.
Sal Capone: The Lamentable Tragedy Of, does its best to bridge that chasm at Presentation House Theatre from March 29 to April 2.
