Jamilah Lemieux on the complicated beauty of being a ‘Black. Single. Mother.’

This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley. Baby mama is a phrase that can diminish a woman, reduce her to a relationship that didn't work out. And in the United States, no one has carried that label more than black single mothers. In 1965, the U.S. Department of Labor commissioned a report from future Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan that looked at the rising number of black households led by single mothers and called it the root of a tangle of poverty and dysfunction, a finding that shaped decades of public policy and cemented a cultural stigma. President Ronald Reagan gave that stigma a face, the so-called welfare queen. By the time welfare reform passed in the 90s, it had heartened into policy. Black single mothers weren't just stereotyped, they were punished and blamed. I grew up with a single mother during those years. Our home was full of love and care, but I know how that shame impacts both single mothers and their children. My guest today, Jamila Lemieux, a writer and cultural critic, has lived that story too. She said she once thought single motherhood was a fate just slightly worse than death and worried that writing about it could mean wearing that label forever. Eventually, over the last decade, she has given a firsthand account of single motherhood in columns, essays, and on social media. In her new book, Black Single Mother, Lemieux details the history of that stigma, including the cultural significance of the Moynihan Report, and blends her personal story with those of 21 other single mothers about love and co-parenting, ambition, and the complicated ordinary beauty of raising a child on your own. Jamila Lemieux's work has appeared in the Washington Post, the New York Times, Vanity Fair, Essence, and Slate, where she currently writes the Care and Feeding Parenting column. Jamila Lemieux, welcome to Fresh Air. Thank you for having me. Okay, the title, Black Single Mother. It's provocative, it's simple, but as I said in the intro, there is so much weight to it, and it can be triggering. It was actually triggering to you. For a long time, you kind of hesitated on this being the focus of your book. Absolutely. I worked with my literary agent, Tanya McKinnon, for about five years before we sold this book. Wow. And we'd come up with an idea. I'd work on it for a little while, and then I'd say, I don't like this. I don't believe in this. This isn't the right book. And on a number of occasions, Tanya said, you should write about single motherhood. You should write about black single mothers. And I was afraid that if I wrote that book, I was going to be a black single mother for the rest of my life. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. I thought that by writing it, putting this down, this is who I will be forever. And, you know, one, obviously, I decided, okay, I'm going to do this. This is a book that needs to exist in the world. This is a book that could have been helpful to me in the early days of my motherhood. But also, as I wrote this book, I realized there's nothing wrong if I am a Black single mother for life. I've lived a great life as a Black single mother. I had a great Black single mother. It may not be my preference, but it's not a death sentence. It's not doom. Tell us just a little bit about the circumstances of your single motherhood. Because you were in a relationship, and then you weren't. I was in a relationship for just under two years, and we had decided at my suggestion to see other people. You know, we were having some problems. We weren't super happy. I thought maybe we'll find our way back to each other. And during that time, I fall more deeply in love than ever before, and we conceive a baby. not too long after that he tells me that he wants to break up for good and a few weeks later I find out that I am pregnant so we've been co-parenting my daughter's entire life do you remember the first time you were called baby mama as a way to cut you down I don't you know I'd be willing to bet it probably happened before I actually had a child baby mama is a phrase that's used or single mother. These are phrases that are used online to insult women. So if a man and a woman have a disagreement about something, typically something related to gender, you know, how many baby daddies do you have? You sound like a single mother. So I'd probably heard it before it actually applied to me. And I will say this, it has not been weaponized against me as much online as I had expected it to be. And it certainly has been. You know, there have been times, you know, you're just a baby mama, you're just a single mother, without anything else to substantiate that being a bad thing, you know, or that there was anything wrong with me. Like, you're a baby mama, period. You're a single mother, period. You know, you're deficient. You're wrong. You're broken in some way. But, you know, it's interesting. Like, even while I grappled with shame and disappointment and confusion and, you know, I don't want this forever. This is not what I want my how I want my life to be. I still never take it personally when people have used those phrases towards me as an insult. You didn't see someone calling you a baby mama or single black mother as an insult. But there was an internalizing. And maybe was there also a mourning that you were going to be carrying this baby alone? Yes. It's funny because when I was in the relationship, I had doubts. I had questions about whether we were meant to actually be together. You know, there were things that didn't work for me. I wasn't always very kind to him. Like, it just wasn't great. You know, there were things about it that were great. And he's a great person. I think I'm a great person. We had a lot in common, but looking back on it, I feel like we would have been so much better as friends. You know, I can't say we should have never dated because if we hadn't dated, we wouldn't have our daughter. But I was grieving this image of family that I'd built up for myself from childhood, you know, largely due to television and books. You know, it was the Huxtables. It was the Banks. every children's book I read it's a married couple you know and the few times that you did come across a single parent in entertainment they were usually a widow you know or the father was completely absent which I also couldn't relate to you know so nothing looked like me but what I did see was you know particularly when I think about the Huxpils and the Banks black upper middle class families enjoying prosperity together you know so I think I was able to name that I was thinking about family. You know, I'm thinking about marriage. I'm thinking about partnership. I'm thinking of multiple children. But I think a big thing that I felt like I was missing was class privilege. You know, it was money, right? I wonder, had my mother been a high-earning single mom, would I have mourned and grieved what was missing from my life? You know, the way that I did. Yeah, you growing up. So you were born and raised in Chicago, not far from where the Obamas would later call home. And your mom was a single mom herself. Your dad was in the picture, but he didn't live with you. And it was sort of a different type of relationship. You would see him. But was he as much of a co-parent as your daughter's father is? Absolutely not. No. Was my father a co-parent? Yes, particularly in the terms by which we would have understood co-parenting, which wasn't even a phrase when I was born, you know, or a commonly used phrase. So he visited the house a lot. He would take me to brunch or to visit my grandmother on the weekends. You know, there was like one year he picked me up from after school every day. You know, so like he was very present. You know, he called every day. Right. So in the context of the 90s and the dialogues about absentee black dads and how many kids I knew who didn't have fathers at all or have fathers that were in and out of their lives. You couldn't tell me nothing about my dad. My dad was great, you know. And then some things happened, you know, throughout my childhood and teenage years and things start to be revealed to me that kind of, you know, not shattered that picture of him, but complicated it a bit. But he was always, you know, very present, but not, you know, raising me in the way that my daughter's father, who has her 50% of the time, is raising our daughter. Tell me about your mom. What kind of mother was your mother? My mother was an amazing mother, is an amazing mother. She's just a fabulous lady. She's very regal. You know, I always wear nails, and that's kind of like a tribute to her. You know, always has full glam look. she was very loving you know very kind when people talk about like oh my mama would have killed me or you know I would have got a whooping for that like I can't relate you know my mom was doing gentle parenting before it was a thing you mentioned the reaction to you being a single mother online and you bring up online because you have a prolific presence online you are back in the day when Twitter really became a thing, you really gained really what can be called fame from Twitter and from your social media, talking about social commentary and feminism. And there is a passage where you write about the tension between performing motherhood publicly on Twitter, the cute pictures, the funny stories, and privately feeling somewhat like a failure. And can I have you read it? This public performance of motherhood stood in contrast with the shame I felt over the circumstances under which I was doing it. Trolls would still reliably remind me that I was alone, of course, that my baby daddy had left me. Some of them would claim that David had broken out during my fifth month of pregnancy, a lie that had somehow gotten enough traction to be thrown in my face numerous times. Privately, I felt like a failure for becoming a single mom. And at times, that feeling turned into guilt when I shared otherwise cute or funny stories with my audience. Who was I to have an audience at all? I was just another baby mama. And David is your child's father. Can you talk about that gap between what people saw online and what you were carrying? Because obviously, intellectually, you understand it all. But there is that internalizing, that feeling. Yeah I think it was less about having failed in the eyes of these other people you know because I never really been big about adhering to other folks rules and standards But like it was me grieving what I lost what I felt like I lost Like, I had this vision of family. I wanted to be the Bohemian Huxtables in Brooklyn in a brownstone. I love how you put Bohemian on the front of that. Yes. I didn't want to be just like them. You know, I wanted to be like me with their good fortune. and less children. Growing up on the South Side of Chicago, you mentioned that coming from a single mother wasn't something that was rare or unique. How did it play out and what did it look like in your childhood? It was interesting. I grew up in a mixed race, mixed class neighborhood called Hyde Park, which is essentially the campus of the University of Chicago. I went to a top flight elementary school, Beasley Academic Center, which was in the heart of the Robert Taylor Holmes projects. So it was the opposite of what often happens, which is kids are bused from a, you know, struggling neighborhood to a, quote unquote, nicer one for school. And it was the other way around. Kids were bused in to Beasley, you know, even though it was in this challenged area. And, you know, most of my friends had single moms and there was a range of class experiences. There were working class moms. There were middle class moms. And, you know, back then, I wasn't hearing negativity about single mothers the way I do now in the era of the Internet. You know, there was, I think of when the term baby mama becomes popularized in 1997 with the song That's Just My Baby Daddy by B-Rockin' the Biz. You know, we start hearing baby mama and baby daddy commonly. And like hearing rappers, you know, in the early 2000s make derogatory references to my baby mama, you know, stressed out by the baby mama, can't stand the baby mama. But in terms of the community and the people around me, I wasn't in church. So I didn't witness the judgment that single mothers often experience. Oh, that's interesting. You have come to believe or just see that maybe those who are in church had an extra set of rules that they were abiding by. Absolutely. Candace Benbow, a black feminist theologian, talks about this in her book, Red Lip Theology. She's also the child of a single mother. And her mom, the church asked her mom to get up in front of the congregation and apologize for having a child out of wedlock. and she refused to do it, you know, but it was made very clear to Candace by people, adults around her, that there was something wrong with the circumstances of her birth. You know, I didn't experience that. And as I grew older and, you know, heard things, you know, there may have been people in my family that were judgmental of my mother for, you know, the way I came into the world, but it wasn't something I experienced. You know, I didn't watch it happening. What was it like hanging out with friends who did have parents who were married. I remember the Davises for me, and it wasn't until high school. And I thought, okay, this is for real, like the Huxtables, you know? Yeah. There are two families in particular that kind of stood out like that for me. And I talk about them a little bit in the book. My friend Raven, who's my oldest friend, we went to every school together from kindergarten to college. You know, successful married parents, two cars, big house, vacations, you know. And then my friend Lilla, who I met in high school, you know, successful parents, own a home, you know. And I never, I never like felt uncomfortable or judged or anything around them. But I was very, you know, cognizant of what they had and what I didn't have. I want to actually play a clip from the Cosby show. It's of Claire Huxtable. and it happens in season two and Claire who's played by Felicia Rashad meets Elvin, her daughter's boyfriend who's just walked into their home and Claire educates Elvin about marriage equality and the problem with outdated gender roles because if those who used to watch it remember Elvin had some pretty antiquated thoughts about women and women's place this episode aired in 1986 let's listen Hi, Mrs. Huxtable. Hello, Elvin. Is Sandra ready? Well, not yet, but she'll be down a little while. Would you and Dr. Huxtable like some coffee? Coffee? Yeah, coffee. You mean you're going to get it? Yes. You're surprised? I'm sorry, Mrs. Huxtable. I didn't think you did that kind of thing. What kind of thing? You know, serve. Serve whom? Serve him. Oh, serve him! As in serve your man? Well, yeah. Let me tell you something, Elvis. You see, I am not serving Dr. Huxtable, okay? Okay. That's the kind of thing that goes on in a restaurant. Now, I'm going to bring him a cup of coffee, just like he brought me a cup of coffee this morning. And that, young man, is what marriage is made of. It is give and take 50-50. And if you don't get it together and drop these macho attitudes, you are never going to have anybody bringing you anything, anywhere, anyplace, anytime, ever. Now, what would you like in your coffee? Maybe I could get you some coffee. That was The Cosby Show from 1986. What do you hear when you listen back to that clip? Well, first, I want to paraphrase Dream Hampton, the great Dream Hampton, something she said about R. Kelly once. I'll paraphrase it to adapt to this situation I hate Bill Cosby for making me hate Bill Cosby oh yes because I mean talking about the Cosby show in today's context we can't help but think about you can't yeah yeah you can't but yeah like I that show isn't I was very little when that episode aired but the show was on syndication for so many years so I'm certainly familiar with that scene And I'm certain it made an impression upon me. You know, the first feminist essay I ever wrote, I was about 12, and it was called Fix Your Own Damn Dinner. And it was, part of it was I'd seen a Kraft commercial. It was like a Kraft macaroni and cheese commercial. And Gladys Knight was singing about macaroni and cheese. Yeah. And there's this woman cooking and doing all the things for the family. And for some reason, that just bothered me. You know, I think that was when I started to realize that women were expected to do everything. Because even when I thought about the married mothers I know, everybody worked. But usually the child care and the cooking and stuff fell on them. You know, like, it just, it hit me. And I think, you know, I was also thinking about my own mom, even though I didn't know the answer to how do we fix that? because there's no other adult in the house, you know? But, like, the idea of a mother doing everything didn't sit right with me. And I think that that was one of my biggest oppositions to single motherhood, you know? But the irony is, as a single mother, I don't do everything. I do have time to myself. I have help. I have support, you know? There's some study that suggests that, like, single mothers do, like, seven hours less housework per week compared to married mothers because they're not taking care of a man. Wait a minute, just so I could get this straight. So they work less in the home because they have less people to care for in the house. Yes. So, you know, ultimately, like, I think that when I think about partnership and what I was kind of wanting for as a kid that I couldn't quite articulate was for somebody to carry the load in a way I didn't see somebody carrying the load for my mother. I knew my father was supportive of my mother. I knew he did things for her, ran errands, picked things up, dropped us off places. Sure. But the labor, the work of parenting fell on her. Let me take a short break. If you're just joining us, our guest today is writer and cultural critic Jamila Lemieux. We'll be right back after a break. I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is Fresh Air. This message comes from WISE, the app for international people using money around the globe. You can send, spend, and receive in up to 40 currencies with only a few simple taps. Be smart. Get WISE. Download the WISE app today or visit WISE.com. T's and C's apply. There's something very important that you're doing in this work, in this book that you have written. And your desire to be a married mother and have a partner, but not in the traditional sense that we have been taught that we want that, you know? And so that conflict, was there ever a fear for you, though, that you may not have that, that that just might not be possible in the face as well of you being a single mother yourself? Absolutely. I think that fear hit me as soon as I knew that I would be a single mother. Will I ever have the family that I wanted? And I was certainly really grappling with that question. Is this going to happen? You know, will I still be able to have another baby if I meet somebody? And, you know, I feel confident that everything is going to work out for me very well, no matter what the size of my family may be. And that's an important point to make because one of the other things you came to understand and discover as a single mother is that there's another richer experience in defining family. And defining family, what did it look like for you? What does it look like for you? It's interesting. I would say for maybe the first five or six years of my daughter's life, I would still say things like I want to settle down someday and start a family. I might not have said it publicly in those words, but that's how I felt, you know, as if we weren't a family. And I do think that part of that wasn't just that I didn't have a partner, but also that I only had one child. Because I do feel like if there were two children, I think I would, my brain would have made the connection like, hey, this is a family. We are a family. You know, there's three of us, but two people? Can two people be a family? You know, like I've heard that same debate over a couple with no kids. Are they a family? And the answer is absolutely yes. So my family, you know, my primary core family is Naima. Extended from that, her father, her stepmother, her younger brother, her grandmother, her husband, you know, her daughter's aunt and cousin. They're part of my family. There my mother and father and my siblings and their spouses and my nephew you know And then there are these great friends that I made throughout my journey who are just as much family to me in many ways as anyone else So my family is sufficient. My family is, I don't know if complete is the right word, but my family is enough. You and your child's father have a great co-parenting relationship, but it took some time to get there. Mm-hmm. Can you talk a little bit about that for me? Because there was a moment, there was a time right after you had Naima that you would show the world through Twitter pictures of her and share her daily life. But you didn't share it with him. You were feeling really angry and hurt. Yes, but we were co-parenting the whole time. So from when Naima was born, her father was in the delivery room. He would come by generally after work for a few hours every night and spend time with the baby until, you know, I was comfortable with her leaving with him. We were in each other's lives. He was very present. But I was angry and hurt, so I was not very cordial. You know, really that first year, sometimes I'd come to the door and just hand him the baby and close the door. I cursed him out one good time for bringing her back late and not answering the phone. That was the last time I ever yelled at him, but it was, you know, a memorable one. When did it flip? When did the relationship shift? Just, you know, my wounds had time to heal. And it's difficult to say this, but I think David getting married when he did, when Naima was four months old, forced me to rip the Band-Aid off and grieve the relationship in a kind of abbreviated time frame frame as opposed to hoping that he comes around and we work things out and we get back together. You know, I knew that was not a possibility, so I had to deal with what was before me. And I never wanted my hurt feelings to impact Naima's relationship to her dad. I did not feel like I needed to punish him through our child. I was hurt, but this was Naima's dad. So he was going to be a part of my life, you know, and he was going to be a part of her life. And I knew that he would be a great father. Naima wouldn't be here if I'd had any doubts about that. And so it was a little tense for quite a while. I didn't meet Naima's stepmother for like the first maybe three years. Wow. I wasn't ready. That took some commitment. Yeah. And even when, you know, things had gotten warmer between he and I, and I was able to, you know, we could have a brief conversation about the weather. You know, I still wasn't ready for her. And then one day I was. And she and I have had a great relationship since then. What's been the secret, you think? Putting Naima first. I think that that is the secret. You know, that nothing was more important than Naima. Not my pride, not my ego, not my feelings, not my comfort. you know but I was able to put her first without throwing myself away so I did prioritize my comfort to a certain extent when I wasn't ready to meet her stepmother I did that on my time and there were people you know friends of mine who didn't have children who were saying you need to meet this woman she's in your child's life and I'm like look I he has married her I can't remove her I can't say oh I don't like her so Naima can't be around her anymore so all I could do was trust that her father would not have someone around her who did not love her, who did not treat her well, who did not have her best interests at heart. And even though I may have been upset and disagreed with the timing of their marriage, I did not think that David would ever bring somebody around his child who was not going to treat her well. Let's take a short break. If you're just joining us, my guest is Jamila Lemieux. Her new book is Black Single Mother. This is Fresh Air. This message comes from WISE, the app for international people using money around the globe. You can send, spend, and receive in up to 40 currencies with only a few simple taps. Be smart. Get WISE. Download the WISE app today or visit WISE.com. T's and C's apply. To be a mother can sometimes be all-encompassing. And if you're the only mother in the household, Oftentimes your identity is completely tied to your child. You're not a sexual being. You're not a person with hopes and dreams. That's just not something that's at the forefront. You write about all of this stuff. You write about wanting to feel sexy and have a partner and have dreams and hopes in your career. And your daughter is there and a part of all of that. But was that something that you had to break through yourself and finding your own identity? Or was that something that had always just been clear to you? And if so, how and why? No, I always knew that this was the type of, you know, even before I might not have anticipated being a single mother. But I always knew that when I was a mother, I was going to have a life of my own outside of mothering. And I think that's because my mother's life, from what I could see. And now that I'm older, I see things, you know, somewhat differently. There was more there than I could recognize, you know. But from my vantage point, everything revolved around me. She didn't go out with her friends. My mom had me at 36, which was considered geriatric back then. And most of her friends had older children. So they were going out and doing things that she wasn't able to do. She's the only adult in the house. She did not trust people watching me. I did not have many. I had very few babysitters, and that was always during the day. I don't think anyone ever babysat me at night, maybe very few occasions. Other than that, my mom really didn't spend any nights away from me. And that's just not what I wanted for myself. And I honor her sacrifice. You know, my mother had me a bit older than I was when I had my daughter. You know, we both chose to have babies under complicated circumstances. And we'd also both been told that we would have difficulty having children. You know, my mother had very bad fibroids, was fully under the belief that she would not be able to have a child. I was told in my early 20s that I had polycystic ovary syndrome and that I was going to have to get pregnant on purpose. I was going to have to be very intentional. You know, so it felt like a sign. But I told Naeem his dad at the very beginning, like, you're not going to be a weekend dad. You know, and he said, I don't want to be. And he never has been. I also wonder about your parenting style. because I was reading, as I'm reading this book, I'm thinking about, wow, she's really laying it all out. She's telling us stories about dating, stories about her feelings, about being a mother. Do you also share that with your daughter in life? Has she, yeah, gone along this journey with you? Yes. My daughter knows me very well. She knows me, the real me. She doesn't know a sanitized mommy version of me. I've been very intentional about making sure that my daughter sees me as a full human being, you know, not just a mom. She knows that I cry. She knows I get disappointed. I don't let her into everything. I generally do not tell her things that will scare her or cause her great worry. But I've let her into a lot of parts of my life. I've talked to her about dating. That's something my mother did not talk to me about at all. Neither of my parents really talked, you know, very, my mother talked to me about HIV. and my dad taught to me a little bit about chivalry. And that was kind of the extent. And, you know, one day I was in the- Totally a 90s baby. Yes. Yes, because those were the two things to talk about back then. Those were the things. You know, it's interesting, this book coming out at this time, because there's also a movement where a lot of women, a growing number of women are choosing to be single mothers. Absolutely. I think this moment in time is going to be a renaissance for single moms, you know, and black women absolutely belong at the forefront of that. Yeah, what do you credit that to? I think just, you know, an increasing number of women are choosing single motherhood, you know, many of them white women. And because they're making that choice, this is going to be a public conversation. And I'm curious to know how will Black women factor into that because we've been doing this so long and there's been so much, you know, pushback towards us. What do you want people to take away from this book? I want people to reimagine Black single moms. I want people to question, you know, what sort of biases or, you know, negative ideas they may have about Black single moms. And I want them to recognize us as an important force in the Black community that has been an important force in the Black community since our days on the plantation. And to recognize and salute our efforts in raising Black children and to be supportive of us. There's this song you talk about in the book that for a long time triggered you. It's Fantasia's song, Baby Mama. and I want to play a little bit and then talk about it on the other side because it has become an anthem but it also is kind of a polarizing song. Seems like people either love it or they really hate it. Let's listen. I got love for all my baby mamas It's about time we had our own song Don't know what took so long Cause nowadays it's like a badge of honor To be a baby mama I see you paying you, I see you working you, I see you going to school, and girl I know it's hard, and even though you're fed up with making beds up, girl keep your head up on my B-A-B-Y-M-A-M-A. This goes out to all my baby mamas. This goes out to all my baby mamas. B-Y-M-A-M-A This goes out to all my baby mamas. I got some more. That was Fantasia singing her song, Baby Mama. And she described it as a tribute song. She was 17 years old when she had her daughter. And she's gone through a lot. But you said for a long time you couldn't listen to this song, and now it brings tears to your eyes. Yeah, I was tearing up just then. Yeah, when it came out, you know, I was young and very not anti-single mother, anti-me being a single mother, you know. And so I just was kind of like, why is this something to celebrate? And I probably never sat and listened to the song all the way through when it came out, to be honest. You know, I heard the chorus and was kind of like, okay, no, thank you. I don't want this around me. And when I hear it now, I think it's so revolutionary and so significant. And Fantasia should really be credited for having the courage very early in her career to publicly surround single motherhood in love and pride You talk to 21 single mothers in this book, and they tell you about the joys, the sorrows, the pitfalls, the enrichment of their lives. What was that process like for you? And did you learn something maybe that you didn't know from talking to them? The book I turned in was not the book I sold. I was going to speak to all these experts. I was not intending to weave as much memoir in there as I did or personal storytelling. And when I looked at my story, it's not that I see it as so singular, but I realized that I am a light-skinned, college-trained, middle-class presenting woman who had both of her parents and who is a single mother with a co-parent, an active co-parent who divides her time with me evenly at this point. That is not the most common Black single mother experience. There are a host of them. You know, there's no one definitive experience. But, you know, I knew so many other interesting single moms in my networks. You know, I thought, I'm going to talk to about five or six moms. And then five or six turned into ten. And, you know, next thing I know, there was 21 of them. But I, you know, what they all have in common, and this didn't surprise me, but the common thread is, you know, this undying commitment to their children. You know, it's that regardless of their class status or where they came from, that they have created great lives for their children, you know, regardless of how difficult their circumstances may have been. Jamila Lemieux, thank you so much for writing this book and thank you for the conversation. Thank you for having me. Writer and cultural critic Jamila Lemieux. Her new book is Black Single Mother. Coming up, TV critic David Bianculli reviews the new series American Classic, now streaming on MGM+. This is Fresh Air. This message comes from WISE, the app for international people using money around the globe. You can send, spend, and receive in up to 40 currencies with only a few simple taps. Be smart. Get WISE. Download the WISE app today or visit WISE.com. T's and C's apply. Kevin Kline stars in a new series now streaming on MGM Plus called American Classic. He plays a New York actor returning to the small town and theater where he got his start. TV critic David Bianculli has this review. American Classic is a hidden gem in more ways than one. It's hidden because it's on MGM Plus, which is a standalone streaming service, which, let's face it, most people don't have. And who wants one more streaming service? But MGM Plus is available without subscription for a seven-day free trial on its website or through Prime Video and Roku. But do find and watch American Classic, because it's an absolutely charming and wonderful TV jewel. Charming in the way it brings small towns and ordinary people to life, as in northern exposure. Wonderful in the way it reflects the joys of local theater productions as in Slings and Arrows, and the American Playhouse production of Kurt Vonnegut's Who Am I This Time. The creators of American Classic are Michael Hoffman and Bob Martin. Martin wrote and created Slings and Arrows, so that comparison comes easily. But back in the early 1980s, Who Am I This Time was about people who transformed onstage from ordinary citizens into extraordinary performers. It's a conceit that works only if you have brilliant actors to bring it to life convincingly. That American Playhouse production had two young actors named Christopher Walken and Susan Sarandon. So yes, it worked. An American classic, with its mix of veteran and young actors, works too. American classic begins with Kevin Kline as Shakespearean actor Richard Bean, confronting a New York Times drama critic about his negative opening night review of Richard's King Lear. The next day, Richard's agent, played by Tony Shalhoub, calls Richard in to tell him his tantrum was captured by cell phone and went viral, and that he has to lay low for a while. As Richard processes that news, his own cell phone vibrates. When he takes the call, he learns more bad news, and we learn just how self-obsessed Richard can be. I'm gonna need a month to clear this up, maybe two in the meantime. Leave. Leave? As in go somewhere else, and I don't mean Brooklyn. I mean like a remote island, another country, another state at the very least. So I'm being banished from Broadway for entertaining people. You know, that's what I do. Okay. Hello? Mom's dead. Who's this? John. John who? Your brother. Oh, hi. Hi, John. This is my brother. Did you say Mom's dead? Yes. Did she read the review? Richard returns home to the small town of Millersburg, where his parents ran a local theater. Almost everyone we meet is a treasure. His father, who has bouts of dementia, is played by Lynn Carrioux, who starred on Broadway in Sweeney Todd. Richard's brother, John, is played by John Tenney of The Closer. And his wife, Kristen, is played by the great Laura Linney from Ozark and John Adams. As soon as Richard arrives in Millersburg to attend his mother's funeral, his brother makes it complicated. Don't tell Dad about the thing with Mom. What thing? The death thing. That she's dead. He doesn't know. He doesn't? Won't he sort of figure that out when he sees her in the coffin? Just don't. It'll upset him. He won't know how to process it. This is a longer conversation. He'll love seeing you. Okay? Just enjoy each other. Okay. I'll see you later. Things get even more complicated because the old theater is now a dinner theater, filling its schedule with performances by touring regional companies. Its survival is at risk, so Richard decides to save the theater by mounting a new production of Thornton Wilder's Our Town, casting the local small-town residents to play local small-town residents. Miranda, Richard's college-bound niece, continues the family theatrical tradition. And Nell Verlack, the young actress who plays her, has a breakout role here. She's terrific, funny, touching, totally natural. And when she takes the stage as Emily in our town, she's heart-wrenching. The playwright Thornton Wilder is served magnificently here. And so is the playwright William Shakespeare, whose works and words Kevin Kline gets to tackle in more than one inspirational scene in this series. I don't want to reveal too much about the conflicts and surprises in American classic, but please trust me, the more episodes you watch, the better it gets. The characters evolve and go in unexpected directions and pairings. Klein's Richard starts out thinking only about himself, but ends up just the opposite. And if, as Shakespeare wrote, the play's the thing, the thing here is, the plays we see and the soliloquies we hear are spellbinding. And there's plenty of fun to be had outside the classics in American Classic. The table reads are the most delightful since the ones in Only Murders in the Building. The dinner table arguments are the most explosive since the ones in The Bear. Some scenes are take-your-breath-away dramatic, others are infectiously silly, as when Richard worked with a cast member forced upon him by the Angel of this new Our Town production. She's Nadia, the Angel's Russian girlfriend, and Richard tries to loosen her up with an improv session. Elise Kilbert plays Nadia, and for her too, this should be a breakout role. Let's do an exercise. Forget about the lines. You're just Mrs. Gibbs, turn-of-the-century wife of the town doctor, and we're just going to chat. Okay. All right. So, good morning. How are you, Mrs. Gibbs? How are you? Hello. Hi, you guy. Yeah, what did you do this morning? I... I waked up. Okay, now remember, you're a real person. Yeah. You do real things. Chores? Any chores? Be specific. Details are important. I wash it and ironed the flag. You what? I'm washing the flag and I'm ironing the stars and the stripes so they lying perfectly straight. I see. Okay. Uh, one last question. Would you say you're a happy person? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'm a happy American woman, lady, girl, woman. and I'm wearing ginnom. Ginnom? Yes. Been working on that one. Take the effort to find and watch American Classic. It'll remind you why, when it's this good, it's easy to love the theater and television. David Bianculli reviewed the new series American Classic, now streaming on MGM+. On tomorrow's show, is there anyone who doesn't know Harrison Ford? Probably not. Now in his 80s, he's had a career that spanned decades. And in the last few years, he shot the final Indiana Jones film, the Yellowstone prequel, 1923, and the series Shrinking, in which he plays a psychiatrist dealing with Parkinson's. I hope you can join us. To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at NPR Fresh Air. Fresh Air's executive producer is Sam Brigger. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Anne-Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yacundi, Anna Bauman, and Nico Gonzalez-Whistler. Our digital media producer is Molly C.V. Nesper. Roberta Chorrock directs the show. With Terry Gross, I'm Tanya Mosley.