That book is from 2013. Ten years later Soulpepper director Frank Cox-O’Connell and his troupe of singers, storytellers and musicians are here to say that Detroit has risen from the dead. I think they try much too hard making that case. The “we’re back” narrative is pushed with such puffed-chest pride it seems fed from the Detroit chamber of commerce. That comes toward the end of concert, though. The bulk of the show is more tough, political and thoughtful.
Automobile mogul Henry Ford is cast as something of a villain, offering Black workers only the most “dangerous, demeaning and dirty” jobs. Flashed archival images contrast a pipe-smoking white man driving a Thunderbird with shots of the grubby work conditions in Ford’s factories. The version of the Motown hitFord had his assembly lines and Motown record label maestro Berry Gordy, Jr. had his as well.