"White folks can't stand unhappy Negroes, so laugh," the veteran black actress instructs the young black actor in "Trouble in Mind," Alice Childress's wise and extraordinarily winning comedy-drama about American racial strife as it plays out in a New York rehearsal room, circa 1957. The counsel of Wiletta Mayer, portrayed in Arena Stage's wondrously effective production by E. Faye Butler, falls disconcertingly on the…
SOURCE: Washington Post at 05:35PM on October 26, 2011