Whose story?
The People's Temple struggles to uncover the truth behind Jonestown.

By J.H. Tompkins

EDGEWOOD CEMETERY, small, modest, and slightly overgrown, sits on a gentle hill that fits easily into its East Oakland neighborhood. You wouldn't guess that in 1979, 234 people were buried at Edgewood in a mass grave, some six months after they died. The remains were unidentified except for this: they were among the 913 people who on Nov. 18, 1978, took part in a suicide-murder at Jonestown, Guyana. They had once been members of the notorious People's Temple. For a few weeks they were international news, although their remains were unwanted and unclaimed.

Harsh judgment had been passed, and the world seemed anxious to bury events with the dead. That impulse wasn't surprising; the founder of the People's Temple, the Reverend Jim Jones, vilified in death as a sexual predator and murderer, was once an important figure in San Francisco political and civic life. Jones, a white man whose congregation was overwhelmingly African American, preached a gospel that rejected the racial inequality and shallow materialism spawned by American capitalism. Determined to find a better way of life, in 1977, Jones and more than a thousand men, women, and children moved en masse to Guyana and founded Jonestown. Named for the man many people called Dad, the town they would carve from the jungle was to be a socialist utopia. In San Francisco, insiders would sometimes hear rumors of what could charitably be called anti-utopian behavior, but Jones had considerable influence – doubters, naysayers, and whistle-blowers were ignored.

The past 27 years offer proof that memories, stories, and deeds – good and bad – won't stay buried. There have been official investigations, written accounts of events in Guyana, and some survivors of the massacre have told their versions. Many others, however – particularly African Americans – have refused to talk publicly. During the past three and a half years, the principle members of the Jonestown Theater Project have made it their business to break that silence. Their labor – and it hasn't been easy – has spawned a play along the lines of the award-winning Laramie Project. The Jonestown project's lead writer, Leigh Fondakowski, and Greg Pierotti and Steve Wangh were instrumental in creating Laramie and developing an approach to playwriting based on what they call "moment work." They have interviewed Jonestown survivors and relatives and friends of those who didn't come back, and they've done countless hours of research.

Oakland's Margo Hall is the fourth member of the project's inner circle. Also a member of San Francisco's much-acclaimed Mission District theater company Campo Santo, she is well-known as an actor and director. These days the production that has the most resonance for Hall is the well-received Unquestioned Integrity: The Hill/Thomas Hearings, whose text was lifted from the Congressional Record. "When I did Anita [Hill]," she remembers, "I studied her mannerisms, posture, rhythm, re-created her onstage – it's a matter of breathing in that person. I had to feel her, and that came from deep down."

While Unquestioned Integrity has some things in common with an investigation of Jonestown, it has two significant differences. One is that Unquestioned Integrity's dialogue – the play itself – was already a matter of public record. While there was still considerable creative challenge in deciding how to edit and stage the play, Hall and her collaborators knew in advance what they were working with. Second, they had enormous respect for Hill; getting "deep down" didn't involve much personal risk. The challenges posed by Jonestown turned out to be very different and difficult.

Survivors, project members, and anyone who's looked into the People's Temple will tell you that there isn't one dominant story, that each person involved with the temple had his or her own story. That is true. But it's also true that the People's Temple is the story of a white leader with a majority of African American followers who, though promised racial and economic equality, were led to their deaths. The temple may have been born to combat American hypocrisy relating to racial justice, but in its death, it embodied the very problems it allegedly opposed. That some temple survivors – most of them African American – have refused to speak to members of the project is not surprising.

Project members were caught off-guard, and, initially, much of the burden fell on Hall's shoulders. I spoke with her some 18 months ago, and as the only African American among the four writers, she was troubled by what had happened. "The play has got to have the black voices," she said, "but at this point, many of them do not want to talk – some because they don't want to air black laundry in public. Others won't speak to us because of the white people involved. They say, 'Look where it got us today.' So at the first reading, there was definitely not enough black voices. If we didn't do anything about black voices from now on, then I could not be part of it. I've had 10 people say no, and some said if it was a black company, they'd go for it."

There have been significant changes since our first conversation. Some black survivors have come forward; in a recent conversation, Hall described the satisfaction she got from such progress. "I was inexperienced at first," she told me. "It took me a while to understand how to approach people. When I had my first real breakthrough, with one woman who is a significant part of the play, it felt great."

Project members have also come to grips with another fact of life. "We realize," Hall said, "that there are more white survivors than black survivors. And we may not like it, but the history of the People's Temple is going to be told more by whites than blacks. In a way, though, it makes sense because American history is always being written by white people – that doesn't make it good, however. It's hard for me because in many ways I understand the reluctance of black survivors to open up. I don't blame them."

As it turned out, white former People's Temple members described a situation that at the time was free from the inequities of American society. Black survivors, on the other hand, detailed daily life at the People's Temple as a situation where white people were for the most part calling the shots.

The burden of holding project members together fell on Fondakowski. If her focus wavered, she didn't show it. "It was a year and a half, two years before this took shape," she told me. "I thought it would be maybe a couple of months."

She, more than Hall, is ready to embrace the material they were able to get. "We're trying to put the weight of the story on the survivors, and there is enough plot to fill a dozen plays. I'm saying, 'Let's hear what these survivors say, put them up next to each other and see what happens.' Race has been a constant issue. Trying to get the African American survivor community to come forward, it's been a very slow process. It's happening now, finally, but it's taken this long for people to have confidence in what we're doing to come forward."

There's no doubt that, as Fondakowski emphasized, the project is dealing with rich, powerful material. Still, the question of who owns the story is ever present. Each survivor may have his or her own perspective, but whether people know it or not, there is one story that hangs over the project like a shroud. There's no law that gives African American survivors ownership of the story, but there is the weight of history. White survivors are struggling with questions involving socialist utopias and the role of leaders in that process – a pursuit whose history has never brought it into the American mainstream. What black survivors are struggling with, on the other hand, is all too familiar. How much of that will appear onstage remains to be seen.

'The People's Temple' runs through May 29. Berkeley Rep's Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk. $10-$55. (510) 647-2949. See Stage listings for show times.