Tate and Fishburne are electric in their roles, and that energy is a major reason why the show works so well. In the lead, Tate imbues Tillman with an undeniable magnetism, grit, and determination, making his rise through the organization feel inevitable instead of a plot contrivance. As our audience surrogate, Tate proves adept in painting a picture of the world around him without straying into the uncanny. Fishburne’s turn as “Eyeball” Randolph is the centerpiece of the show, though. Playing a reformed gangster turned respectable pillar of the Chicago community, Fishburne is working on another level entirely. Randolph is the smoothest operator in just about every room he finds himself in, as he cajoles and politics those in power for the benefit of the Bronzeville community. His ceaseless drive takes the character into some gray areas, but we always understand where his heart is at all times thanks to Fishburne’s performance. One of Hollywood’s greatest voices is amplified by subtracting the visual, finding new registers of honeyed malice.
In short order Tillman finds himself pulled further into the Copeland family when he claps eyes on the brothers’ beautiful younger sister, Lisa, played by Tika Sumpter. Lisa has been purposefully kept apart from the family’s empire, given a more worldly life and tony education at Northwestern, but her and Jimmy’s orbits can’t help but intersect constantly. Their star-crossed love story forms the emotional core of the show, in large part due to Tate and Sumpter’s warm and playful performances. The chemistry between the two is effervescent; even in an audio-only format we can feel their attraction, sense the way their eyes light up when they see each other through subtle shifts in tone. Instead of just being an object of desire, Lisa more than holds her own throughout, displaying just as much verve and out of the box thinking as Jimmy and Curtis. Throughout the narrative one begins to suspect that she’s the real heir apparent to the Copeland empire.
In a uniquely serendipitous way, the project—initially destined for television before being turned into an audio drama—harkens back to the outsize role that Chicago played in the history of Black radio. From Jack L. Cooper’s groundbreaking The All-Negro Hour in the ’20 and ’30s, to Richard Hudson’s pioneering works, from the first all-Black radio serial Here Comes Tomorrow and the Black history program Destination Freedom. In many ways Durham’s fingerprints are all over Bronzeville, as he was himself a transplant to Chicago from the South, studied at Northwestern, lived in Bronzeville, and was for a time a member of the Communist Party. His radio dramas featured a blend of history, social commentary, and dramatic intrigue, all of which are prominent facets of the podcast as well.
I should take a moment to shine some more light on the show’s incredible supporting cast. In addition to Tate, Fishburne, and Sumpter, listeners are treated to performances from Wood Harris, Tracee Ellis Ross,and Omari Hardwick. Even the side characters are littered with great turns from Lalah Hathaway as a fledgling blues singer, Levar Burton as a crooked Alderman, and Justin Kirk as a winningly crusading lawyer. And I’d be remiss to not mention the show’s narrator, Wren T. Brown, whose mellifluous timbre assuredly guides every episode with studied ease.
Brown closes every episode with the line, “Thank you for listening to this audio theater for the mind,” and that distinction feels justly earned. The sound design and scoring of the show, by Grayson Stone and the band 1500 or Nothin’, respectively, are first rate. The show even comes with an absolute earworm of a theme song. There’s something special in the way that it is a product of its stars, and not merely a vehicle for them. That distinction makes all the difference, this is clearly a labor of love for Fishburne and Tate. In every way, from writing to performances to production, Bronzeville is a modern classic of the medium.
It’s worth noting as well, that that very medium—for all its proclamations of openness and inclusivity—is still an incredibly white space. It’s not just anecdotal, a report last year from the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative found that, of the top 100 podcasts on Spotify, less than a quarter of them were hosted by nonwhite individuals. Expanding the study to a larger sample of nearly 600 podcasts causes that number to drop to just over 20%.
For a show as ambitious as Bronzeville to remain, almost a decade later, largely unrivaled in the space feels like a symptom of those broader issues endemic to podcasting as an industry. When I covered the show upon its debut in 2017, I hoped to see it run for many years, but four years elapsed after its initial 10-episode run and the show’s truncated second season, and in the five years since, there has been no indication that the story of Jimmy Tillman, Lisa Copeland, and Curtis Randolph will continue.
Next month: Come back for an extra-special discussion about the urtext of modern audio production and storytelling, This American Life, in recognition of its 30th anniversary (under that name). What can we learn from the radio show that came to define the podcast medium and whether the distinction even matters? See you then!
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