NHTG News: Blog - NewHeritageTheatre.org

ON OCTOBER 9TH AT 12 NOON ARTISTS, NON-PROFITS, & COMMUNITY ACTIVISTS UNVEIL A NEW SOCIAL JUSTICE MURAL AT THE

AVENUE C OUTDOOR GALLERY

195 Avenue C (at 12th street)

The unveiling takes place during YOUTH JUSTICE ACTION MONTH (YJAM), which is a month dedicated to promoting policies that keep more children out of adult courts, jails, and prisons.

This October, New York will begin rolling out its Raise the Age Policy which will get our kids off the island and out of the adult courts. Thanks to all the community activists who joined us on court house steps and in Albany. Let’s keep up the fight!

James Baldwin’s bracingly relevant writings, which inspired the potent “I Am Not Your Negro,” also resonate deeply in “Chapter & Verse,” Jamal Joseph’s tough / tender portrait of an ex-con attempting to find redemption in modern-day  transitional Harlem.

Having served eight years in prison for “being stupid,” reformed gang leader S. Lance Ingram (the film’s co-screenwriter, Daniel Beaty) is trying to do the right thing, living clean in a halfway house and landing a delivery job for a food pantry.

Despite his best efforts, Lance encounters potential minefields at every Harlem corner — including his amorous supervisor Yolanda (a fiery Selenis Leyva) — offering the constant reminder that any misstep could land him back in the Green Haven Correctional Facility.

Things take a turn through his friendship with Ms. Maddy (the always terrific Loretta Devine), a spirited widow with a wry sense of humor and a troubled teen grandson who is headed down a path Lance knows only too well.

Filmmaker and Columbia professor Joseph, and playwright Beaty, in his feature writing and acting debut, infuse the movie with an intense New York City realism and an evocative street poetry that conjure up early John Cassavetes and Spike Lee.

But ultimately, it’s the voice of Baldwin, who more than 50 years  ago observed, “All over Harlem, Negro boys and girls are growing into stunted maturity, trying desperately to find a place to stand,” that rings out clearly in this deeply affecting drama.

'Chapter & Verse’

Rating: R, for language, drug use, some violence and sexuality 

Running time: 1 hour, 39 minutes

Playing: Cinemark 18, Los Angeles

The year was 1997, and Harlem was like “a prison without bars,” Mr. Joseph said. “The crack epidemic was ravaging the community and buildings were crumbling,” he said. “And that was when I decided to create an organization to help young people understand there are other ways out, other options, other tools.”