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A Remembrance of Yolanda
King '76
Len Berkman, Anne Hesseltine Hoyt Professor of Theatre
Among my favorite early
memories of Yoki at Smith is her vigorous participation in the African-American Drama
course that I initiated upon my arrival on campus, first as an exploratory seminar
and soon as a class of approximately 60 students each year. Two-thirds of the class
were students of color thirsting for writers who reflected spheres of
experience, complexities of values, language, perspective, locale, and
pain that these students saw too little articulated and dramatized in so
much they had to read and found lauded as "universal." Yoki generally
sat in the midst of rising tiers of movable chairs, on the window side
of what used to be Sage 2, the lower level of Sage Hall, an intimate
proscenium theatre now converted into the Earle Recital Hall. The plays
we read included a number that explicitly confronted the philosophies
and reactions expressed by Yoki's father as well as those expressed by
Malcolm X and believed to challenge or oppose her dad's approach.
The class was wonderfully
volatile, but when we came to discussing
Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X through their dramatic
representations, the class momentarily stiffened. Eyes darted sideways
toward Yoki's face whenever any risky-seeming analysis or reaction was
ventured. Yoki was visibly aware of this. Being Yoki, she was neither
daunted nor eager to flaunt her lineage. I remember a particular moment
when she (maybe five or ten minutes into this stiffness) decided to
speak. In a soft clear voice, she paid tribute to the Malcolm X
character and to the "real life" person who had inspired it. Succinct
and moving, she discussed the kinship of awareness and purpose that
prevailed between Malcolm X and her dad, both within the scripts we
discussed and in "the world." I could hear an audible sigh of tension
release as Yoki assessed strengths and weaknesses in the stance that
each man took. Then she sat back and let the rest of the class take
their turn. All that had been vibrant and volatile in the class
resurfaced; and, thanks to Yoki, the free-for-all of conflictful ideas
and goals found anew its disciplined yet irrepressible arena within the
myriad script details with which each student had to contend.
As Yoki's "faculty escort" during her visit
to Smith as one of our 30
"Women of Distinction" (I was her theatre major adviser, and she took
various courses and special studies with me, out of which her acting and
playwriting skills joined happy forces), I reminded her of that
particular moment when she transformed an entire class.
Characteristically, she recalled that moment as having happened but
without identifying her own role as catalyst. And then, for a split
second, she allowed that identification to register, her smile as broad
as the sun.
It's little wonder that her professional career would
embrace the
formation of a theatre troupe with Malcolm X's daughter. It's little
wonder that she would never seek to become a "star." She had other
things on her mind and in her heart. Her writing, her performances, her
in-and-out-of-class dialogues at Smith were signals of that. People,
issues, societal struggles, the fabric of human interplay as impacted by
place, time, character priorities and so much more, were what she knew
theatre could effectively, even delicately, communicate. That said,
what I recall more powerfully than anything was Yoki's luminous warmth.
Her very nickname (as lovely as her given names, Yolanda Denise)
embodies that, and my grief at her loss is grinningly counterbalanced by
my gratitude, my enormous gratitude, to have known her on this earth.
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