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By Erin Smith
Actor and Playwright Mike Wiley took over the stage in the media center of the Clarkton School of Discovery and brought to life the great Jackie Robinson as he performed his play called “A Game Apart.” The play chronicles the life of baseball great Jackie Robinson, but also teaches the lessons of the past as experienced and seen through the eyes of Robinson.
Through his play, Wiley brings to life what it was like to grow up in a racially segregated United States. He engaged the audience throughout the play at various times by selecting students to take on and improvise various roles in the play.
Wiley’s play begins at the end of the Civil War when sales were free to move, vote and conduct business until the implementation of the Jim Crow Laws.
Wiley explained through his use of Jackie Robinson that the Jim Crow laws were a much a part of life in America as the sport of baseball itself.
He explained to the students that lunch counters were segregated, trains and buses were segregated, etc.
Wiley told the story of how Jackie Robinson was born into a family of share cropper who still worked for same family that owned them as slaves. He explained how Jackie’s father eventually left the family and his mother moved the family to California where they experienced the same types of bigotry and racism.
Wiley also interspersed other characters in the play as well. He touched on such athletes as Jockey Isaac Murphy, an African-American Hall of Fame Jockey who won the Kentucky Derby there times. Wiley said that eventually came to end with the creation of Jockey Clubs that began to require special licenses in order to ride race horses.
He also touched briefly on Fritz Pollard who was the first African American to coach in the NFL.
Wiley also spoke about the positive influences Robinson had in his personal life which included his brother, Mack who finished third to Jessie Owens in the Olympics. He told how Mack Robinson came home from the Olympics but did not receive a heroes welcome and big endorsement deals, but instead could only find a job sweeping the streets.
Wiley talked about Joe Louise who in 1948 famously defeated Max Schemling.
He highlighted some of Robinson’s own experiences with racism which included a time in the US Army where he was court mortadella for sitting in the white section of a bus. Robinson then left the Army and started playing sports
The play touched on the Negro League and how Robinson was the first to break the barrier and became on of the first African-American baseball players in Major League Baseball.
After the play ended, Wiley took questions and answers from the students, but first, he asked the students, why they thought he asked them to participate in the play. Many offered up various answers such as to help play the characters and another said to experience the characters.
Wiley said, “To experience what it might be like to be one of these individuals.”
He was asked about the uniform he wears in the play, he explained that is made of a heavy fabric similar to denim. Wiley explained that the original uniforms the players used to wear were very heavy
Wiley said that he does these performances because “I want to share these stories with school age kids.”
When asked about advice for young actors he said he had two things to offer: one is practice and rehearsal and the second is don’t wait for someone to give you the opportunity to act.
“I took opportunity and wrote my own plays,” said Wiley.
Jennifer Marlowe said the visiting artist is made possible because of a NC Arts Council grant
“We have to tell them who we will get to come to the school and what they are going to do,” said Marlowe.
She said she was introduced to Wiley when she taught in Whiteville when he performed for students there.
After the performance Wiley spoke with Bladen Online. He said he chose Jackie Robinson because Robison made a wonderful example of how though his own sacrifice he changed the face of the nation. Wiley noted that baseball was America’s sport at that time.
“It made it easier to desegregate when people could see that we could be in fact be a brotherhood and a sisterhood,” said Wiley.
He said began writing his own material because he didn’t see that many plays that involved the audience. Wiley said he got involved in performing his plays in the schools because he said he noticed there were not really that many plays about African-American history. He said that through his work, he sees children making the connections to historical events.
Wiley has a degree in communications and master’s degree in professional acting and also does performances in theaters and at colleges. He also owns his own production company, Mike Wiley Productions.
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