"In one section, at least, of our common country, a government of the people, by the people, and for the the people, means a government by the mob; where the land of the free and home of the brave means a land of lawlessness, murder and outrage."

— Ida B. Wells, Lynch Law in All Its Phases (1893)

"The difference between the right word and the almost right word," said Mark Twain, "is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug."

It’s a nice line and it comes to mind as I think about City Theatre’s gloriously entertaining production of "Constant Star," a musical play about the life of Ida B. Wells. What exactly is the difference, I’m asking myself, between the lightning and thunder of this play and the sermonizing morality lesson it might have been?

For playwright Tazewell Thompson, a relatively young man with a wealth of professional theater experience — including having directed the recent New York City Opera production of "Porgy and Bess" that aired on PBS — the challenge was to create a full-length play with one character doing all the talking. While it’s been done before successfully — celebrated one-person plays, for instance, about Emily Dickinson and Mark Twain — in this case the character is Ida B. Wells, who presents a rich opportunity but not without inherent difficulties.

Inspired by a PBS documentary about Wells, Thompson intuitively knew this was a woman whose life deserves to be celebrated and brought forward into the frontstage lights of public awareness. A pioneer civil rights activist, uncompromising and committed body-and-soul to struggle against Jim Crow injustice, Wells was a newspaper editor, fearless journalist, fiery speaker and the singular leading voice against the ugly brutality of lynching in America.

She was friend or antagonist — sometimes both — with many of the leading American activists of the late 19th and early 20th century, including Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony, Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Dubois. In a just world, her life would be a model of citizenship in democratic society. She’d be prominently included in public-school curricula, yet — as Thompson points out in program notes — for most of us, she’s little more than an historical footnote.

Still, the opportunity to highlight Wells comes with a built-in set of problems. Unlike literary figures such as Twain and Dickinson, Wells’ writing was seldom other than forged steel striking hammer blows for justice. Her written legacy, including an autobiography, reveals a vital, strong woman but virtually nothing of an inner person — little of soul searching, inner struggle, vulnerability. Wells was supremely sure of herself — part of her strength as an activist. But it doesn’t bode well for an interesting one-woman biographical play.

Thompson, who also directed, attacked the problem in several ways. His most ingenious stroke is parsing the role of Wells among five actors. Spoken lines pass back and forth among the five, creating a high-energy effect not unlike quick-cut film editing. This high energy level is reinforced with precisely staged movement. The five women, costumed in 19th century hoop-skirt and ruffle dresses — all of them notably black, white and gray — circle and pass among each other in quick, graceful dance.

Thompson also breaks out of the box Wells presents to him by not confining himself to the written record. "Constant Star" is, he says, a fictionalized account in which he has imagined himself inside the head of Ida B. Wells. Scenes, lines and speeches are invented, and the writing is at a high level throughout, with bits from Shakespeare dropped in like spice, a trait apparent in Wells’ own writing.

"Like flies to wanton boys are we to the Gods, they kill us for their sport." Wells’ familiarity with "King Lear" (or is it Thompson’s?) served well in finding language appropriate to the horror of lynching. Even so, and shifting dialogue notwithstanding, I think we might tire of Wells’ stentorian tone if not for song.

Thompson inlays "Constant Star" with the musical tradition that grew out of African-American slavery — the spiritual. Twenty of these traditionals —some as familiar as "Do Lord," many new to my ears, some in snippets, some more complete — punctuate the play, performed beautifully by the five women, who create thrilling vocal music, a tour de force of a- capella singing.

The songs serve as brief resting places between scenes, and they’re often well chosen as transitions, such as at the end of the first act when "There’s a Storm a-Rising" follows Wells’ description of the Memphis lynching of three black grocers who were her friends, lynched because a white businessman wanted to eliminate competition.

One can’t have seen this play without appreciating the energy, musicianship and ensemble performance of the five Idas — Maria Becoates-Bey, Etta Cox, Nadiyah S. Dorsey, Wabei Siyolwe and Brenda Thomas. All but Thomas grew up or live in Pittsburgh, and "Constant Star" is nothing if not a powerful display of talent from a few of Pittsburgh’s many talented African-American women performers.

Many know Cox as one of the area’s pre-eminent jazz singers. Becoates-Bey, also a marvelous singer, often performs in local theater. Dorsey, the youngest, looks to have a promising career ahead. Siyolwe, a forceful presence and fine singer, moved here a few years ago. She’s originally from South Africa, where her father was a teacher of Nelson Mandela.

"Constant Star" follows not far behind the Warhol Museum’s trenchant September-to-January exhibit of lynching photographs, "Without Sanctuary."

Laudably, the program notes quote some of Wells’ more searing anti-lynching statements and help us not to forget this chapter of American life, one many of us may find hard to accept as historical fact — a perhaps ineradicable blemish on our cultural self understanding, too easy to pretend it’s not there, vitally important not to forget.

Historical fact it is, as discomfiting as this may be. From the 1880s until 1931, when Wells died, 4,600 people, nearly all southern black men, were lynched in the United States. Many were hunted down by posses of white men.

Some were burned alive. I don’t wish to be unfeeling about the loss of thousands of lives in New York City this past September. I feel this loss deeply, as many of us do. Still, I’d like to see flags waving from every front porch and car on the highway for those nearly 5,000 black people horribly victimized by hatred from within our own national community.

Much of this gruesome record was compiled by Wells. She documented unjust lynchings in countless articles and several books, laying bare the falseness of rape accusations against black men, often put forward after lynchings as a pretext. Her crusade is an American journey we should hold dear to what we value most. It’s at peril to justice and freedom that we let this exemplary life fade into obscurity.

With "Constant Star," Tazewell Thompson does an act of social justice, creating a bright beacon of a play, which will find many performance venues and reach thousands of people who don’t yet know the story of Ida B. Wells.

I applaud City Theatre for bringing this play to Pittsburgh and for mounting such a beautiful and memorable production.

Mike Schneider, co-arts editor of The New People, is a poet who lives in Edgewood.