By Michele Markarian

“Detroit Red” by Will Power. Directed by Lee Sunday Evans. Presented by Arts Emerson, Emerson Paramount Center, 559 Washington Street, Boston, through February 16.

A tense, noir-ish film clip of a man holding a gun in a downtown Boston jewelry store is superimposed across the stage.  “It takes point two seconds for a gun to respond to your finger’s light touch”, begins the twenty-year old Malcom Little, aka Detroit Red, at the top of the world premiere of “Detroit Red”, which covers the years the young Malcolm X lived in Boston.  His early life was troubled – a murdered father, a mother who suffered a nervous breakdown, an older sister with health complications – and his struggle to find his place in the world is marred by his treatment at the hands of white people. 

Read more “The Tension and Release of “Detroit Red””