Petrusso explores how the play being rehearsed in Trouble in Mind, entitled Chaos in Belleville, reflects Trouble's tensions and characters, especially Wiletta.

In Alice Childress's Trouble in Mind a racially mixed group of actors and a white director and writer are rehearsing a Broadway play that is ostensibly anti-racism and anti-lynching. The white actors and director believe that Chaos in Belleville will impart a positive message of racial tolerance to its audience; they believe they are doing good work. Most of the black actors do not believe that this is true. These actors play the same kind of stereotypical servant roles in which they are always cast. They took these roles because they needed the work, not because they believe they are imparting any great social message. By looking at the parts of Chaos in Belleville being rehearsed, it becomes obvious that, in many ways, the world...