Lauren E. Banks, who plays Amber in Katori Hall’s The Blood Quilt, now in the Mitzi E. Newhouse, grew up in Durham, North Carolina. At Hillside, a historically black high school, she was co-captain of the basketball team and head of the drama club. She was on the school system’s international baccalaureate track, which fostered travel. “I was lucky,” Banks said, “to have all these activities, plus the encouragement and support of my parents.”
Banks’s character in The Blood Quilt has a quite contrasting experience. “Amber is the youngest of four sisters,” Banks said, “and her mother’s favorite. She has excelled in school and become an entertainment lawyer in California. But now her mother, who was her protector in the family, has died.” Banks added: “Amber’s philosophy has always been, ‘If I do good things I get love back.’ Now, that’s changed.”
Amber’s situation will be recognizable to anyone who has provided financial support to a family only to find that money isn’t sufficient to place you in good standing. “Amber finds that people can resent the fact that they’re dependent on you,” Banks said. “Plus, they may have needed emotional support as well as the money. They need you to be there sometimes physically, not go off and not return years later.”
Banks kept in touch with her own hometown even as she went to Howard for her undergraduate degree and Yale for her M.F.A. in acting. “I started a theater camp at my old high school,” she said. “Arts programs were in danger of being cut, and I wanted to do something about it. Kids were grateful, and I got a lot of satisfaction from that.”
Banks herself is grateful for the experience of The Blood Quilt. “This has been a beautiful treat,” she said. “Being part of a story that involves five women, without a man in sight.” This is unusual for Banks. “In my career, I’ve been the lady among the wolves.” She mentioned her work on the TV crime drama “City on a Hill” and on the period western “Lawmen: Bass Reeves.” In the latter, Banks said, she was “definitely the matriarch among a lot of men.”
“I don’t mind playing strong females,” Banks said. “I know from my own experience how they have to juggle a lot of roles.” This awareness of balancing started in school. “I was Sojourner Truth in a play, and I would show up for rehearsal in my warm-up clothes for basketball practice. My basketball coach and my play director were both whispering in my ear, telling me to focus on their particular activity.”
A different panoply of voices comes at Banks every night as she portrays Amber in The Blood Quilt -- those of three sisters and a niece. “I don’t have blood sisters like Katori does,” Banks said. “But I do know what it’s like to be in a room and have to listen to a lot of people. I’m not Amber, but as I do the drama every night I’m getting a little bit clearer about who she is.”
Brendan Lemon is a freelance journalist in New York.
