Brutal Imagination

De: Cornelius Eady

Narrado por: Joe Morton, Sally Murphy

Tony Award® nominee Joe Morton and stage veteran Sally Murphy star in this award-winning play based on a tragic true story. Using excerpts from real newspaper transcripts, Brutal Imagination reexamines the case of Susan Smith, a white mother who falsely accused a Black man of carjacking her and kidnapping her two young children. The riveting story, written by poet and Pulitzer Prize finalist Cornelius Eady presents listeners with a unique perspective on the harrowing nine days between the fabricated crime and Smith’s eventual confession. As illuminating and resonant today as ever, Brutal Imagination confronts the patterns of injustice that have haunted African American men for decades.

©2001 Cornelius Eady (P)2021 AO Media LLC

Please...

With no expectation, with no bias, with no guilt, with no anger, with no finger-pointing or stones in hand to cast...from a place of loss, disappointment, desperation, and impressions not of your own choosing...just listen...not just to this (I won't classify) but to echoes of thoughts and conversations about this and the parallel echoes this invokes. This is an opportunity to empathize with both sides of a topic we aren't comfortable with and possibly be gentle when we have to do so in the future. We've all been misunderstood. Let this be a start of relating to that feeling and seeking to understand before judging. This is a lesson we hate to admit we get wrong but desperately need to learn.

excellent writing and production

This was a great production. I read the book it was based on and saw the play many years ago. A listener should come to this presentation aware that it's poetry that's more on the evocative, non-linear side rather than conventional prose writing. It also combines creative interpretations of the actual events with news text and excerpts from real interviews. If you come at it with an open mind and an appreciation for more "out of the box" thinking, you'll love this new way of presenting poetry, historical cases of racial profiling and true crimes. The actors and production team are spot-on. They really bring the characters to life and make us remember the two child victims of this tragedy.

Brilliant illustration of a past news story!

I'm not sure if everyone remembers this news story that was a nationwide search. The author and narrators were great.

Heart wrenching!

I remember this event so clearly, but hearing it dramatized in this fashion was like hearing a story I never knew.

Good short story

Even though I know the story and the outcome I wanted it to be in the story almost like wanting the made up criminal to be vindicated but still very good

Obtuse

An enjoyable listen to a creative audio creation. Without having read the synopsis i would have no idea what inspired the narrative. Perhaps accompanied by a video slideshow of headlines from the event would have brought this one home.

Intense performance

If a true story we all know but have never heard it like this before. It was a little scary at times cause I was listening on my headphones.
An interesting perspective of the imaginary perpetrator being inside her like she was possessed. the intensity of an angry inner monologue with both the mother and the imaginary black man speaking at once was scary but performed very well.

Feels like the first time I heard about it SPOILERS

This was a masterpiece by all involved.

This is a horrific story and this new POV makes it worse.

Susan is the MONSTER in this stories in so many ways. She still is according to news reports.

Bravo to everyone involved in this production.

The narrators were perfect!

50:50

I liked the premise of this story but found the narration a bit hard to keep up with, without visuals. It gave me the impression of a theatre performance, but without actors. But still, the story is a good one and very pertinent to current times. Good listen on a long drive.

Heartbreaking

Hard to listen because it takes on hard truths about racism, how we usually see what we want to see, and how the unthinkable is sometimes true and yet hidden under easy prejudices.