Barney Yates
"Tied"
by Crystal Rae is a tour de force March 6-22, 2026 Actor Jason E. Carmichael has found himself a tour de force with "Tied,"a one-man play by Crystal Rae, which centers on an African-American father named Daniel whose youngest daughter died in the KKK bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, AL in 1963. As he reflects on his life in the aftermath of the bombing, he gives us a lesson in grief and the constant struggle of a Black man to suppress his feelings and to surrender to the pressures and demands of white society. Sitting on his porch--a symbolic space inside his own mind--Daniel recounts his childhood, his marriage, and the powerful influence of his father and ancestors, whose voices live within him.
As a boy, Daniel feels overshadowed by his brothers and uncertain of his own identity. As an adult, he has built a life with his wife and two daughters, but everything changes after the bombing. He is consumed by grief, guilt, and rage, reliving the moment he searched through the rubble for his child. In the months that follow, he becomes haunted by vivid dreams of a necktie turning into a snake choking him. It's a symbol of the pressures to conform to white society. (It's also the metaphor behind the play's title.) Daniel struggles to function, drifting between numbness and violent anger. He considers revenge when he encounters one of the men responsible, but ultimately cannot go through with killing him. Instead, he leans on the love of his wife and surviving daughter, who help anchor him to life. As Daniel reconnects with his spiritual roots and the voices of his ancestors, he finds a fragile sense of purpose. In the end, he rejects vengeance and chooses to live for his family, embracing survival, memory, and identity over destruction. Jason E. Carmichael has a wonderful voice and presence onstage. He is majestic as he describes his daughter's birth story, impersonates people of all ages, dances and stomps in rhythms, pantomimes a hunting dog, gives us a lesson in his mothers walk (she carried her anger in her hips), plays his daddy with a hat, pipes and a walk, and meets the devil in the form of a fellow shopper who buys him the aformentioned tie, cleans his room in the Negro Hospital, and hunts runaway slaves with the aforementioned dogs. The play demands of Black audiences that they answer what may be the single most vexing question of American Black life: how do you fight the impulse for revenge against a society that oppresses you? Is the wrong you endure the devil's work, or is it the resistance you put up to the impulse for revenge?
Alpha Omega Theatrical Dance Company, led by Artistic Director Enrique Cruz, brought this memorable piece to their studio theater at 70 E. 4th Street after a celebrated run in Houston, where it won the Houston Press Best Actor Award. I'm grateful that they did and I'm grateful that I had the opportunity to witness it.
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