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April 24 - May 18, 2008
Intimate Apparel
Reviewed April 26 by
David Siegel
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Running
Time 2:35 - one intermission
t
A
Potomac Stages Pick for a remarkably delicate production of love lost
Click here to buy the script |
Whispered secrets, sexual awakenings and
betrayals are front and center in this tender and remarkably delicate
production as the African Continuum Theater company resurrects itself from
its near death to produce Intimate Apparel. Upon entering the theater
space, one is made ready to be absorbed as a striking multi-layered
contraption of a set, chock full of steps and hidden places, objects and
props awaits. With a well balanced ensemble of actors working together
seamlessly calling up complicated characters in various phases of heartache
and heartbreak, this production does not become a hankie inducing
melodramatic cry fest. Under Jennifer L. Nelson’s steady and knowing hand,
this is a creation that conjures up loneliness and then illuminates things
for those who care about love, or the lack thereof, as a transformative
experience. Lynn Nottage’s Intimate Apparel is a poem of love and
loss from the point of view of mature individuals learning that affection
and emotional intimacy can come from unexpected quarters, and that opening a
heart can be deadly. The production is well served not only by its ensemble
working as a whole, but by a finely subtle performance by Deidra LaWan
Starnes in the lead role, and by Annette Dees Grevious as the shrewd but
needy prostitute. Area favorite, Jewell Robinson, is all refinement and
understatement as the older mentor. Susan Lynskey, Zuanna Sherman and Daniel
Eichner each add critical pieces to the audience’s enjoyment.
Storyline: The daughter of a former slave
moves north to New York City and makes a career for herself as a seamstress
crafting "intimate apparel" for a wealthy, mostly white, clientele. As
highly trained as she is with a needle, she doesn't read or write, so when a
laborer on the Panama Canal begins to write to her, she seeks the help of
friends and customers to craft her responses. Unbeknownst to her, he too is
illiterate, relying on assistance to create the gentle missives he sends.
Romance blooms and he travels to the US to marry her. She's not getting
exactly what she expected, however, and their tribulations teach each many
lessons.
Lynn Nottage, born in
1964, is a graduate of Yale School of Drama. She has received a Guggenheim
Fellowship and in September 2007, the MacArthur Foundation presented her
with its “genius award.” Intimate Apparel was co-commissioned and
produced at Baltimore’s CenterStage in 2003. In 2004 it was produced
Off-Broadway to critical acclaim. Jennifer L. Nelson has taken a very visual
approach in her direction. Her technical design team has given high
curb appeal to the set so that an audience will spend time before the show
just trying to figure out all the nooks and crannies. Nelson’s cast is an
experienced one with nary a weak link, though on press night there were some
dropped lines and minor miscues here and there; all to be forgiven. She has
her cast go through their dramatic paces as they are each called upon for
great big physical and verbal moments as well as modest tender gestures;
some are also asked to provide arrogant, forceful, sometimes violent
deliveries and then switch to be meek, humble, speaking in almost
beaten-down tones. They do pull it off. Intimate Apparel is a play
that first and foremost requires that the touch of hand to a piece of cloth
be felt and seem like a lover touching for the first time. There is success
here with that sensuality.
As the central character,
Deidra LaWan Starnes finds modesty, almost timidness, about herself that is
so very well suited to her role. Against her the other actors are arrayed
and move about. It is a juxtaposition as if the sun revolves around the
moon. Starnes seems slight in stature and can be so very reserved and
diffident in her acting, as if she wants to walk and breathe without making
a sound. When she is courted through long distance letters from an
unanticipated paramour, Zuanna Sherman, Starnes brightens, taking on a
womanliness that had been hidden under high collar blouses, long full skirts
and her near murmur of delivery. As she moves about the stage, interacting
with others, she does not falter as the quiet central presence. Slight definitely, scared maybe, timid sure - but they
all circle her and need her or they do not exist. When she touches cloth or
puts her hand across another’s body, there is a quiet spark that is felt. As
for Sherman, his strong, rich, deep voice resonates from the back of the
stage to the deepest reaches of the audience. He is one of earthy strength
and manliness as we meet him in Act I. As he moves through Act II, he
becomes a man beaten down without a job, borrowing money from his wife and
slowly taking on a menacing and aggressive bearing toward her. We are asked
to understand his pain, but can hate him for his emotional violence to his
wife. Annette Dees Grevious is all brass, hiding her neediness behind her
open thighs and quick broad smile. She is a jumble of high energy with
non-stop movement, arms akimbo. She is like an ocean of waves wanting to be
calmed by the slow hands of a good man, even if that man is the husband of
her best friend. Jewell Robinson is the played-out and tired older woman of
experience without happy expectations any more of life, but wanting to
rescue the young women who become her charges. Susan Lynskey delivers a kiss
that had the audience on press night gasping in disgust; it seemed to this
reviewer, though, that it was the chaste kiss of one seeking a connection,
rather than of sexuality.
The audience is met with
the syncopated pre-show music. Throughout the production music is used to
bridge the two Acts and 13 scenes. There is also music within several scenes
from a player piano. With a number of beds in view, there is an expectation
of sexual energy, but they are really beds of melancholy devoid of passion
or life. This reviewer’s eyes took a long, deep look at the rich amber hues
of the set and the lighting that was at times like the morning sun rising
all warm and expectant on a late spring morning. The costumes were very
evocative of time and place and social strata. Soon enough they were no
longer costumes, but just outfits, that is the way it should be.
Written by Lynn Nottage. Directed by Jennifer
L. Nelson. Design: Klyph Stanford (set and lights) Diana Khoury (costumes)
Tim Jones (properties) Chas Marsh (sound) Cliff Russell (photography)
Caroline Listul (stage manager). Cast: Daniel Eichner, Annette Dees
Grevious, Deidra LaWan Starnes, Susan Lynskey, Jewell Robinson, Zuanna
Sherman. |
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November 30, 2006 - January
7, 2007
A Raisin in
the Sun
Reviewed by
Brad Hathaway |
Running time 3:00 - one intermission
t
A Potomac Stages Pick for emotional impact
Click here to buy the script
|
"Somebody get me my hat!" says the mother in the famous
first act curtain line of Lorraine
Hansberry's first and only hit, signaling her determination to take action
to save her family. An equally appropriate line today might be "hold
on to your hat," for this 1959 play is the first in what should be a long
and healthy residency for the African Continuum Theatre Company in the new Paul Sprenger Theater at the Atlas
Performing Arts Center. They finally have a home, and this solid production of one of the
standards of African-American theater bodes well for the company, the
center, the neighborhood and Potomac Region audiences. It opens just as the
company's Artistic Director, Jennifer L. Nelson, has announced her
departure. She was an active playwright and director before taking on the
task of nurturing the African Continuum Theatre Company. Now that it has
become the professional theater in residence at its own center, she's going
to take on new challenges. In the meantime, we get to enjoy the fruits of
her last season with this marvelous production, and next month a joint production with
Ford's Theatre of August Wilson's Jitney.
Storyline: On Chicago’s south side in the 1950’s a family composed of a
mother, her college age daughter, her grown son and his wife and son are
living together in a small apartment. The mother is about to receive the
life-insurance payment after the death of her husband. She wants to use it
to buy a house in the suburbs, but her son wants to use it to open a liquor
store. After she puts a down payment on the house, she gives the rest of the
cash to her son to deposit in the bank. Instead, he gives it to his would-be
partner who disappears with the money.
The play was a hit on Broadway,
running over a year and earning Tony Award nominations for best play, best
direction and two of its cast members. It went on to success both as a movie
(with Sidney Poitier reprising his Broadway success as the son) and as a
musical when it opened under the title Raisin. Two years ago it was
revived with both Phylicia Rashad and Audra McDonald earning Tony awards. As
you might expect, it is an actor’s play. The characters are broadly drawn
and the language is vivid. Hansberry starts the play after the death of the
husband, but there are strong clues in the text that he had been the
strength of the household, and that the mother has reluctantly assumed the
leadership role as matriarch, while hoping her son would step into the
breach. Thus, this is not only a story of the son’s emergence into manhood,
but also of the matriarch assuming leadership of the household until he does
"become a man."
Jewell Robinson is exciting to watch in the role of
the mother, and Jefferson A. Russell is compelling as the son. Both are
starring roles that should be as gripping as they are here. Deidra LaWan
Starnes, however, has the role of Russell's long-suffering wife whose
maturity exceeds that of her husband. Starnes does more with it than might
be expected, making the whole piece richer and more satisfying. Of the
principals, Audra Alise Polk, as the daughter, is the least satisfying.
A pre-med student and semi-radical (for the time) she has the most difficult
major role. It isn't that it is not as well written as the others, but that
the character, being less mature than the others, is less consistent. She
flits from extreme to extreme - a difficult task for any actress, but one a
bit beyond Polk's skill level at this point.
The set, by Timothy J. Jones, creates a rather spacious version of the
cramped quarters Hansberry is writing about, but he backs it with the skyline
of the Chicago neighborhood looming over everything. Reggie Ray's costumes
are particularly notable as they capture the feel of the times without
appearing to be theatrical costumes. These are the clothes these characters
would have worn at the time. It all has a bit of a glow to it with warm set and
costume colors in the brown/earth-tones lit with subtlety by Dan Covey.
As the first production in the new Sprenger Theater, a word is in order
about the facility. A black box capable of accommodating 250 seats is here
arranged for 160 in very comfortable chairs on risers with sufficient rake
to assure most everyone a clear sight line.
Written by Lorraine Hansberry. Directed by Jennifer L. Nelson. Design:
Timothy J. Jones (set) Reggie Ray (costumes) Tracie Duncan (properties) Dan
Covey (lights) Chas Marsh (sound) Clifford L. Russell (photography) Michael
Kramer (stage manager). Cast: Javier Brown or Johannes Dzidzienyo, Jr., John Dow,
Q. Terah Jackson, Dallas Darttanian Miller, Audra
Alise Polk, Jewell Robinson, Jefferson A. Russell, Deidra LaWan Starnes,
Brandon White. |
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September 21 - October 22, 2006
The Gingham
Dog |
Running time 2:30 - one intermission
t A Potomac
Stages Pick for heated emotions unleashed in
eloquent language and honest acting
Click here to buy the script |
Have ever two acts been so unalike? The first is
long. The second is short. The first, loud and full of heated words. The
second, soft and full of hesitant silences. First, angry. Second, tender.
Together they make a uniquely satisfying whole. At least they do when
talented people trust the material and deliver it with honesty as is the
case here.
Theater Alliance's Artistic Director Jeremy Skidmore steps a few doors down
from his home theater at the H Street Playhouse to direct Lanford Wilson's
play about the end of an interracial marriage in the 60s. His cast includes
two fine performers doing marvelous work as the couple, and the design team
works to compliment the dramatic arc of the piece in many different but
complimentary ways.
Storyline: As Lyndon Johnson announces "I will not seek nor will I accept
the nomination of my party for another term as your president," an
inter-racial couple packs up the contents of the apartment they shared until
their decision to break up. Moving day provides the excuse to revisit all
the anger and
dissatisfaction
that caused the break-up. But every
disappointment is the result of a hope and every bit of anger is the remnant
of their passion.
Wilson is one of
the major voices in American drama of 1960s and 70s and continued to turn
out a steady stream of quality work through the rest of the century.
Talley's Folly earned him a Pulitzer prize. Hot L Baltimore
earned him one of two Drama Critics awards and The Mound Builders
added a third Off-Broadway Obie Award. In all, some seventeen full length
plays have come from his pen. In this, his 1969 installment, he captures the
feel of the time and place - Manhattan on the weekend of March 31 - April 1,
1968. But that time and place specificity is just the starting point for a
tightened focus that culminates in the poignant second act. External forces
may well have led to the end of the relationship of the couple, but it is a
classic case of growing apart and in the end, each regrets the necessity of
the separation and both treasure what they had shared and mourn its loss.
At the center of the piece, of course, is the couple.
Yes, there's the next door neighbor (bright and bubbly Rick Hammerly) and
his sister (caustic and cynical Casie Platt) in that hyperactive first act.
But the couple is always what the audience cares about and the play rises or
falls on the performances in those roles. Here, its no contest! Deidra
LaWan Starnes and Jason Stiles are individually impressive, and bond into a
couple completely believable in both their attraction to each other and in
the equal-and-opposite force pulling them apart. They rail at each other
with a ferocity born of the frustration of familiarity. Later, they share an
equally strong emotional reaction to the fact of their split - and it is
exquisite.
As the focus of the story tightens, so the visual
design gets sharper and tighter. Timothy Jones' set starts as a cluttered,
box and furniture filled apartment. It ends as a stark, empty room with just
a lamp, a phone and a coffee pot as the mess that littered this couple's
breakup is cleared away. Andy Cissna's lighting starts as simple, unfocused
general illumination for an afternoon but ends in the sharp contrast of
moonlight shining into a darkened space. David Lamont Wilson's song score
transitions from the pop-optimism of the Beatles' "All You Need Is Love" to
the faux-pessimism of Jule Styne's "I Said No" (but the fauxness of Frank
Loesser's lyric was a bit off-point). All the elements came together to
support the final emotion Shakespeare called "such sweet sadness."
Written by Lanford Wilson. Directed by Jeremy
Skidmore. Design: Timothy J. Jones (set) Erin Nugent (costumes) Tracie
Duncan (properties) Andy Cissna (lights) David Lamont Wilson (sound)
Clifford L. Russell (photography) Roy A. Gross (stage manager). Cast: Rick
Hammerly, Casie Platt, Deidra LaWan Starnes, Jason Stiles. |
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February 2 - 26, 2006
The Story |
Reviewed February 9
Running time 1:25 - one intermission
t
A Potomac Stages Pick for a fast paced, superbly acted topical story
Click here to buy the script |
Tracey Scott Wilson's play, inspired by the events surrounding the Washington
Post's publishing a series featuring interviews manufactured by the reporter,
is, in the hands of director David Charles Goyette, not docu-drama but just
pure drama: fast paced, no-holds-barred drama. It moves so quickly and
captures your attention so completely that it comes as a surprise that less
than an hour and a half has gone by (and with a short intermission at that!)
when the play ends so abruptly that the audience has to think a moment
before breaking into applause. Is that the end? Well, yes - they have told
the story completely and there's nothing else to do but bring the house
lights up.
Storyline: A new reporter, assigned a series of stories about community
centers in the black community, breaks out of the style section soft news
story with an interview with a young girl whose information could crack open
a case of a white man killed in a black neighborhood. But that source is
called into question, as is the truthfulness of the reporter and the "facts"
she reported.
Playwright Wilson may have started with the
Post's dilemma of finding out that a Pulitzer Prize winning series was the
invention of the reporter, but it draws from a wide variety of other
influences including recent incidents of reporters jailed for refusing to
reveal their sources, and even Tom Wolf's The Bonfire of the Vanities
with white people lost in a black neighborhood. Its quick pace allows brief
touches on an equally wide variety of issues from journalistic integrity to
social services in the inner city. She adds to the mix the complexity of the
relationship between two interesting couples at the center of the action,
and then handles all the threads of the story with impressive clarity.
Goyette adopts a rapid fire, constant
movement approach to staging the story with nothing on the square platform
of a playing space other than chairs on wheels that are carried in and
wheeled about when needed. With Harold Burgess' lights tightly focused to
create areas or to draw attention to specific actions, and Chas Marsh's
sounds providing a visceral sense of momentum, the cast spins through this
yarn with hardly a breath. Yet some of the finest moments of acting are the
quiet ones inserted between lines or added away from the center. Watch Jason
Stiles silent fury when he learns he's been lied to. He stands to one side
while the scene continues in the middle of the space but his eyes bulge with
the pressure of emotion.
Chinasa Ogbuagu, so spirited but so hampered
by the concept of her part when she played "The Venus Hottentot" at Olney,
is equally spirited but no longer hampered here as the reporter who never
uses the word "lie" but who proudly states "I made the story more
interesting." KenYatta Rogers is also lively and forceful but with a
different feel as her primary competition in the newsroom. It is Jewell
Robinson who gives both of them the foil off which to play as the senior
editor who fought to integrate the news staff at the paper and who sees the damage from any misdeeds as a
threat to the progress she fought so hard to make. She'd be a delight to
watch throughout the evening, but, then you'd have to take your eyes off
other key performances.
Written by Tracey Scott Wilson. Directed by
David Charles Goyette. Design: Tim Jones (set) Lisa Parkel Burgess
(costumes) Tracie Duncan (properties) Harold Burgess (lights) Chas Marsh
(sound) Thelonius Starnes (stage manager). Cast: MaConnia Chesser, Mary C.
Davis, Jessica Frances Dukes, Mildred Langford, Jewell Robinson, Maya Lynne
Robinson, KenYatta Rogers, Chinasa Ogbuagu, Jason Stiles. |
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November 12 - December 11, 2005
Draft Day |
Reviewed November 12
Running time 1:45 - one intermission
The premiere of a drama comparing slave selling and athletic draft
procedures |
This is one of a pair of new works of ACTCo's "Fresh Flavas" new works
program playing in rep. (See Kingdom below).
Marvin McAllister's century-hopping drama with a certain flippant air
compares and contrasts the condition of people whose futures are determined
on the trading block - the slave sale of the early nineteenth century where
the cry of "bid 'm in, bid 'm up" fills the air, and the modern day
professional sports phenomenon of the draft.
Storyline: Intertwined scenes present the story of a slave merchant
instructing his protégé in the fine points of selling slaves and a pair of
young basketball players attempting to manipulate the selection process of a
professional basketball league draft.
The economic and legal basis for chattel slavery
is held up as a starting point for this interesting comparison with today's
uniquely American system in which the "right" to employ an individual
athlete is determined through a draft with all the teams in a given league
agreeing to refuse to negotiate for or employ an athlete who has been
"drafted" by another team. It is intriguing that McAllister focuses the
examination of the nineteenth century system of servitude on the
perpetrators of what is today recognized as a crime against humanity, while
the modern market for the services of young athletes is viewed through the
stories of the athletes themselves as they hope for selection.
The nineteenth century system is personified
by the appropriately brash Michael Kramer, who educates his protégé, the
nicely wide-eyed Anthony Gallagher. Most of their action takes place on one
side of the stage while the other is frequently used for the more modern
interaction between Mark Payne and G. Alverez Reid, whose sharp tongued
exchanges capture the youthful pride and optimism of two who have become
used to success beyond the experience of most of their peers. Cycling
between the two time periods is Dionne Audain who intones the "Bid 'm in,
Bid 'm up" mantra of the slave market on one side and pursues a slightly
more refined exploitation as a sports reporter of today on the other.
Director Tre Garrett's blocking the
interlocking scenes on opposite sides of the small playing space at Atlas'
theatre lab could have become excessively mechanical and distracting, but he
does a fine job of varying the placement of his actors, and uses the central
area of the stage for both time periods in an overlap that keeps things from
seeming too contrived. The costumes provided by William Pucilowski also seem
more than merely a way to distinguish between the centuries, for he gives
each character garb that is not only true to the time, it says something
about the individual character's self image as well.
Written by Marvin McAllister. Directed by Tre
Garrett. Fight choreography by Karen Abromaitis. Design: Tracie Duncan (set)
William Pucilowski (costumes) Dan Covey (lights) David Lamont Wilson (sound)
Valerie Russell/RUSSELLVISUAL (photography) Keri Shultz (properties and
stage manager). Cast: Dionne Audain, Anthony Gallagher, Michael Kramer, Mark
Payne, G. Alverez Reid. |
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November 12 - December 11, 2005
Kingdom |
Reviewed November 18
Running time 2:30 - one intermission
The premiere of a drama of family conflict of Shakespearean proportions
|
Jennifer L. Nelson directs this half of ACTCo's "Fresh Flavas" pair of new
works, a play by David Emerson Toney playing in rep with
Draft Day (see above). While Toney uses the basic
set up of Shakespeare's Richard III for this extravaganza of sibling
rivalry, he takes it to extremes of gentle humor in the early going and then
matches them with deep dark secrets and evil doings later on. With the
strength of the cast concentrated on the most important characters, the
production gives this new piece a hefty first exposure.
Storyline: At the end of the 1960s in
Cleveland, three brothers battle for control of their family a-la
Shakespeare's
Richard III. The kingdom at issue here, however, is the family's
barbecue chicken shack.
Toney is a
name more often found on this site in a cast list than as a playwright. He
appeared in Othello at
the Shakespeare, Once on this Island
at Round House and The Piano Lesson
at Arena - and those were just this year! This busy man has turned out a
script which starts out seeming as a spoof, but deepens and darkens,
building to a satisfying catharsis through both familial conflict and
long-delayed comeuppance. He structures this nine-scene play in two acts
with a single intermission. However, so much exposition is presented in the
first scene that you may feel you need a break to absorb everything.
The story belongs to the younger brother of
the trio - a character Toney named "Rickey-Trey York." Just to make
sure you catch the reference, he gives him the opening speech from "III"
("Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York"). Ok, we get it! J. J. Johnson,
withered hand held to his chest in deference to the disability of the famous
Richard (herein portrayed as cerebral palsy), gives a well constructed
performance as he grows from stunted youngster to triumphant adult. Keith
Johnson, in the older brother role, is
somewhat less elegant in his progress from commanding head of the household
to the object of sibling revenge. The script gives him less time to make a
smooth transition, however, but he does a nice job with what he is
given.
The feeling of whimsy which pervades the
early portions of the play is well represented in Tracie Duncan's somewhat
askew paneled set with its angular perspectives. It isn't skewed so much,
however, that it damages the feel later in the play when darker
doings are revealed. A nice touch for the pair of plays running in rep is
the program cover which features Shakespeare offering a crown on a barbecue
carryout platter while wearing basketball shorts and chained to a basketball - there you have the concept of both plays in one image.
Written by David Emerson Toney. Directed by
Jennifer L. Nelson. Fight choreography by Karen Abromaitis. Design: Tracie
Duncan (set) William Pucilowski (costumes) Dan Covey (lights) David Lamont
Wilson (sound) Jess W. Speaker
(stage manager). Cast: Mildred Langford, J. J. Johnson, Jr., Keith Johnson,
Addison Switzer. |
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February 3 - 27, 2005
Pecan Tan |
Reviewed February 10
Running time 1:40 - one intermission
Performed at the H Street Playhouse
General admission seating |
Jennifer Nelson turns her attention to a small ensemble piece of comedy with
themes of the resilience and importance of the family. Her design team and
her cast approach the piece at full throttle with few variations or pauses.
With everything emphasized equally, nothing really stands out in the mixture
of confounding circumstance and plot developments. Some of the funnier lines
generate laughs but all too often one gag cancels another and the constant
nearly-melodramatic tone gives the emotional high spots nowhere to go since
everyone is already at a high pitch.
Storyline: A South Carolina family is hit by the twin storms of a hurricane
and the arrival of a child who may or may not be the illegitimate offspring
of the man of the house. His wife didn't know about the affair, his
mother-in-law is more concerned with her gin and tonics and his
brother-in-law just back from the strange world of California communes,
wonders just how this could have been predicted by the stars.
Comedy is a hard thing to pull off. The phrase
"impeccable comic timing" has become a cliché among reviewers, perhaps
because it is so difficult to define. But comic timing has to have something
to do with gradations, shadings, variety and the craftsmanship of setting up
a punch line and then hitting it solidly. Only two in the five member cast,
Willette Thompson and Tiffany Fillmore, incorporate many pauses or silences
in their delivery. Thompson, as the tippling mother-in-law, lands many a
line simply by preceding it with a silent sly look that commands attention
before she unlashes the zinger. Fillmore, as the youngster in search of her
long-lost father and hopeful of finding family connections, uses silences to
let ideas sink in. Unfortunately, she is saddled with a prolonged sequence
of whining that is more irritating than entertaining.
Lynn Chavis and Randall Shepperd team up as
the man and wife with family problems. Chavis rants and raves with panache
and does a nice job with her characters' softening in the end, while
Shepperd manages to convey his character's conflict between wanting the
youth to be his offspring so he can be the father he's never been, and his
difficulty making a commitment which has been the bane of his relationship
with his wife for twenty-five years. Marc R. Payne has some of the strangest
opinions to espouse as the astrology-spouting brother-in-law, but he manages
to avoid coming off as a kook and helps the final scene work.
Set designer Tracie Duncan emphasizes the
cartoonish nature of the comedy by sketching the set design on flat walls in
neon yellows, greens and oranges with push/pull furniture and appliances
that pop out of the walls. The layout of the playing space in this flexible
black box theater with two sides devoted to the set and two to the audience,
at least in Nelson's blocking, results in key plot points being delivered by
Shepperd at the top of his lungs yelling at the wall with his back to the
most of the audience. That his hollers are answered by equally muffled
screaming from back stage complicates the audience's task of trying to pick
out which points are important and which are not. Sound designer David
Lamont Wilson provides some indication of what is to come with his pre-show
musical selections from television sit com theme songs. Then, during the
climax of the hurricane, tries to match the hysteria on stage with the
sound of fury off.
Written by Tanya Barfield. Directed by
Jennifer L. Nelson. Design: Tracie Duncan (set and properties) Marie
Schneggenberger (costumes) Harold F. Burgess II (lights) David Lamont Wilson
(sound) Clifford Russell
(photography) Michael Kramer (stage manager). Cast: Lynn Chavis,
Tiffany Fillmore, Marc R. Payne, Randall Shepperd, Willette Thompson.
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November 4 - 28, 2004
Two Trains
Running |
Reviewed November 5
Running time 3:00 - one intermission
Click here to buy the script |
August Wilson never wrote a lightweight play in his life, but this, the 1960s
installment in his ten-play examination of the African American experience
of the 20th century decade by decade, is the lightest and most diverting of
the bunch. Still, this isn't comedy, it is a representational slice-of-life
drama populated by a collection of richly drawn characters each with his or
her own voice and witness to the forces of an important moment in American
and African American history. It was the fifth of his ten play series to
reach Broadway, opening in 1992. It continued the Wilson's streak of either
a Tony Award or nomination for best play (Ma Rainey's Black Bottom,
1985, Fences, 1987, Joe Turner's Come and Gone 1988, The
Piano Lesson, 1990).
Storyline: In a Pittsburg neighborhood diner in 1969 the regulars observe
the passing scene while the owner calculates how to get his asking price for
the business when the urban renewal agency buys out the block for
re-development.
Director Jennifer
L. Nelson has assembled a fine cast and forged them into a subtly supportive
ensemble, encouraging little illuminating touches (such as a marvelous piece
of business surrounding the flowers KenYatta Rogers character has brought to
Deidra LaWan Starnes' in the second act). These seven people seem to know
each other well, interact naturally, get irritated at each others' foibles
and anticipate each others' opinions. Part of this, of course, is in the
script, found in the words Wilson strings together on the page. But a lesser
cast might deliver the words without the pauses and the glances and the
small touches of intimacy that mark this production. While some of Wilson's
other plays reach more dramatic heights, this performance emphasizes the
sense of community in this one.
Michael Anthony Williams struts with
assurance as the restaurant owner determined to be treated no less
generously in the urban renewal buy-out than any white property owner. He
presides over his small, self contained domain with a sense of ownership
that is quite natural. All of the men in the play seem to live at an
accelerated pace but Deidra LaWan Starnes strikes a different note in her
portrayal of a worn-down, fatigued and nearly fed-up waitress who sees her
job as one of putting in her time. There is a satisfying
sexual tension between her and KenYatta Rogers whose posture seems to change
whenever she's in the room. A few of his lines, however, are difficult to
catch as he stiffens his lips to keep a grip on the toothpick on which he
chews. David Toney delivers Wilson's pithy observations on life in the 60s,
creating a character of intelligence and even grace, while Addison Switzer is
touching as the mentally damaged customer whose fate is a key to the show's
climax.
As with this company's production of Joe
Turner's Come and Gone last season, Thomas F. Donahue's set recreates the
world of the play with meticulous attention not just to architectural detail
but to the atmosphere of a real place being lived in, and Dan Covey's lights
bring that world to life with texture and depth as time passes. In
designing the costumes, Reggie Ray avoids the temptation to make them too
noticeably time specific. After all, the late 1960s was a a time of
flamboyance, especially for men's clothing, but the men who frequented this
inner city neighborhood diner would not have been on the leading edge of
those fashion trends. Ray incorporates a touch of the times while sticking
more with the timelessness that would probably have been seen in the
neighborhood.
Written by August Wilson. Directed by
Jennifer L. Nelson. Design: Thomas F. Donahue (set) Reggie Ray (costumes)
Tracie Duncan (properties) Dan Covey (lights) Charles J. Marsh (sound) Cliff
Russell (photography) Roy A. Gross (stage manager). Cast: Marc R. Payne,
KenYatta Rogers, Deidra LaWan Starnes, Randall Shepperd, Addison Switzer,
David Toney, Michael Anthony Williams. |
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September 14 - October 10, 2004
A Lesson Before Dying |
Reviewed September 17
Running time 2:35 - one intermission
t
A Potomac Stages Pick for emotional involvement and honest, direct staging
Click here to buy the novel |
Director David Charles Goyette approaches this honest, direct and
uncluttered story in just the honest, direct and uncluttered manner it
deserves. Just as playwright Romulus Linney translated the novel's story for
the stage without excessive theatrics or gimmicks, so the entire cast and
crew of this production strive to simply tell the story, let the characters
come to life and give the audience no diversion from the hard truths the
story involves. When the issue is human dignity, showing the humanity of all
involved is the right approach, although sometimes it is the hardest to make
work, especially in the tight confines of a small black box theater like
this one. No one is more than four rows from these characters and there is
nowhere to look away from the quandaries Ernest J. Gaines' novel and Linney's stage adaptation pose.
Storyline: In a small Louisiana town in 1948, the grandmother of a poor
black young man condemned to die for the murder of a white man asks a black
school teacher to help him. The help she seeks, however, isn't to try to
overturn the verdict or fight the death penalty. She simply wants him to
help the young man face his execution with the dignity of a man.
As you might expect from the author of The
Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, the story here offers no simple choices,
no quick solutions and no scapegoats. Yes, there is bigotry and hatred
underlying the worldview of characters white and black but there are no
cartoon stereotypes here. In G. Alverez Reid's portrayal of the condemned
young man there is great strength and an underlying dignity but he is human,
warts and all, with a temper held on a tight leash by cruel confinement not
just to a jail cell and ultimately to an electric chair but, all through
life to a station and a role in the world so far below his
capacities. Reid captures the anger and sorrow and frustration without
excess just as Jefferson A. Russell avoids excesses in his work as the
teacher asked to help. The part could become so saintly it would negate the
lessons of humanity and acceptance but Gaines and Linney give Russell the
material to show a three dimensional man and he puts it to very good use.
The secondary characters here aren't quite as
well modulated as are the two central ones, but the cast under Goyette's
direction steer clear of most excesses. JoAnn M. Williams and John W. Feist
probably have the greatest challenge as the extreme of good and bad in the
characters of Miss Emma who begs for her Grandson's dignity and the Sheriff
who represents the power of white-run society as well as the lack of power
to easily and quickly change, but both find some depth in their roles and
Feist finds some warmth while Williams avoids using too much of the
sweetness found in the text. As if to recognize the complexity of both
worlds, black and white, there are Keith N. Johnson who overplays just a bit
as a black, fundamentalist preacher and Dionne Audain who finds complexity
in the role of the woman in the teacher's life. Bob Lavoie is quite
convincing as the white guard at the jail who represents a sort of kinder
and gentler white man but still operates within the confines of the bigoted
prevailing view.
Timothy J. Jones designed a set of simple
wood plank walls behind a slightly raised wood plank floor that features a
sketch of a lone black man on a plank leaning against the central wall. As
the execution date approaches more and more panels in the set revolve
to reveal more sketches of members of the local black community turning
their attention to the case. These people aren't just facing the playing
space, however. They are also facing the audience. It is an effective way to
silently confront the attitudes the audience members brought into the house
with them and that linger even half a century after the time in which Gaines
and Linney's story is set.
Written by Romulus Linney based on the novel
by Ernest J. Gaines. Directed by David Charles Goyette. Design: Timothy J.
Jones (set) Reggie Ray (costumes) Tracie Duncan (properties) Dan Covey
(lights) David Lamont Wilson (sound) Karin Abromaitis (fight choreography)
Kate Kilbane (stage manager). Cast: Dionne Audain, John W. Feist, Keith N.
Johnson, Bob Lavoie, G. Alverez Reid, Jefferson A. Russell, JoAnn M.
Williams. |
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June 1 - 27, 2004
A Monday Night with
Bess & Tess |
Reviewed June 10
Running time 2:00 - one intermission
Price range $20 - $28 |
There are really four plays by Caleen Sinnette Jennings (Playing
Juliet/Casting Othello) getting their world premieres here, for this piece
consists of four separate "scenes," each an un-related mini-play in its own
right, connected by the slimmest of tissues. The piece - or is that the
collection? - was written with two
performers in mind and those two performers are doing this premiere, Jewell Robinson and Beverly Cosham.
Those who haven't yet had the pleasure of coming to know their individual
and oh-so-substantial talents can see this production as a primer on acting
by a pair of experts with grace, depth and skill to spare. The material that
Jennings has written for them is diverting but not particularly captivating.
Storyline: Two veteran actresses take the
stage on a theater's "dark night" to perform together one last time before
an invited audience before one retires. Rather than perform scenes from the
classics of black literature ("been there, done that" says the retiring one)
they pick four scenes to break color barriers - scenes actually written by
Jennings but in the style of Shakespeare and Wilde as well as more
contemporary voices.
Jewell Robinson has twice graced ACTCo
productions (From
the Mississippi Delta and Gris Gris) and is a member of the
acting company at the Washington Stage Guild while
Beverly Cosham is making her ACTCo debut after years of work at many Potomac
Region theaters including Round House, MetroStage, Source, Studio and
Woolly. Both have been nominated for Helen Hayes Awards (Robinson won for
Blue at Arena Stage in 2001). They each look supremely comfortable on a
stage and that is the key to the chemistry that clicks in this production.
Jennings really creates two pairs of one-act
plays with a faux-classic matched with a faux-contemporary piece for each of
the two acts of this show. Before intermission there is the Oscar Wilde-like
Tee Tee & Thee matched with a "civil rights era" piece called
Still Dark Waters that could have been from the pen of Lorraine
Hansberry. After the break come the Shakesepeare-ish Bound
Hearts (in iambic pentameter) before the ladies tackle a piece said to
be in the "contemporary style" titled Listing and Rolling. All four
are adequately clever in their representation of their style but none is
sharp enough to distract from the pleasure of watching the two actresses
play with them rather than playing them.
Director Jennifer L. Nelson and her design
team effectively turn the small professional theater at the H Street
Playhouse into a replica of a small professional theater. The pre-show sound
design includes snippets of songs that alert the audience to the fact that
they are about to see a pair of performing veterans: "Broadway Baby," "The
Ladies who Lunch," and two versions of "No Business Like Show Business" -
Bernadette Peters and Ethel Merman. Nelson obviously enjoyed creating
blocking for the four scenes that emulate the traditions of the periods
involved, and Robinson and Cosham slip into theatrically appropriate period
costumes for each segment.
Written by Caleen Sinnette Jennings. Directed
by Jennifer L. Nelson. Design: Timothy J. Jones (set and properties) Harold
F. Burgess II (lights) LeVonne Lindsay (costumes) David Lamont Wilson
(sound) Clifford Russell (photography) Willette Thompson (stage manger).
Cast: Beverly Cosham, Jewell Robinson.
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February19 - March 7, 2004
Joe Turner's Come &
Gone |
Reviewed February 21
Running time 2 hours 50 minutes
t
A Potomac Stages Pick for emotional
power and ensemble acting |
Dramaturg Marvin McAllister's helpful notes in the program are a must read
for first time visitors to August Wilson's 1910's installment in his series
of plays depicting the African American experience in the twentieth century
decade by decade. He explains the origin of the legend of Joe Turner and
connects it with the lives of the nine people who come together in
fascinating ways in a boarding house in Pittsburgh. As with each
decade of that turbulent century which we can now refer to as history,
Wilson's dramatic touch brings the demographic, social, economic and
geographic experience of African Americans off the pages of scholarly studies of trends, causes
and effects and gives them human faces, hopes, fears and souls.
Storyline: A strange wanderer seeks lodging
in a black boarding house in Pittsburgh in 1911 as he searches for the wife
he lost while imprisoned by the infamous Joe Turner. He has their daughter
in tow. Also resident in the house are the owner and his wife, a conjuring
man who claims to be able to bind people's lives together and a brash young
man newly arrived in the northward migration of blacks seeking employment
and freedom to the north. Two young ladies are added to the compliment as
well.
The African Continuum Theatre
Company has assembled a marvelous cast of their regulars and a few new faces
to bring Wilson's characters to highly believable life. Randall Shepperd is
sharp and curt as the landlord concerned for the reputation of his house.
Lynn Chavis is warm and accepting as his wife. KenYatta Rogers is fresh and
smooth in his seductions as the young man new to town while Kevin Jiggets is
frighteningly intense as the strange stranger.
Frederick Strother, whose credits include an
inordinate number of August Wilson's plays - he was heart breaking in
Fences at Everyman, invaluable in
Jitney at Studio and tremendously supportive in
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom -
provides the central core of the ensemble in this production as the chanting
and enchanting conjuring man. Then, just as you think you have figured out
who is who and what is what, in comes an additional character in an
emotionally searing performance by Dawn Ursula.
Director Jennifer L. Nelson has not only
assembled a fine cast, she has brought together a fine design team to create
the world these characters inhabit. Thomas F. Donahue, with his second
memorable set design in the month of February (his work for the Theater
Alliance's production of [sic] is the best
thing about that production) mounts a realistic representation of a period
boarding house on the Film Theater's restricting stage, and Dan Covey lights
it with a combination of clarity and subtlety that is remarkable.
Written by August Wilson. Directed by
Jennifer L. Nelson. Design: Thomas F. Donahue (set) LeVonne Lindsay
(costumes) Tracie Duncan (properties) Dan Covey (lights) Mark Anduss (sound) Clifford Russell (photography) Roy A.
Gross (stage manager). Cast: Melissa Princess Best, Milan Broadus or Destiny
Jackson, Michael John Casey, Lynn Chavis, McConnia Chesser, Christopher
Gallant III or Shamal Marcus Lewis, Kevin Jiggetts, KenYatta Rogers, Randall
Shepperd, Frederick Strother, Dawn Ursula.
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November 13 - 30, 2003
Hubert & Charlie |
Reviewed November 14
Running time 2 hours 45 minutes |
There are more strengths than weakness in this presentation which its
creators would probably not object to being called a charming little show.
Indeed, book and lyric writer Jennifer L. Nelson lists among the concepts
that led to the show an effort to create “a musical suitable for a small
cast and small stages.” In that this team succeeded. The small cast is but
three actors, two of whom turn in pleasant and occasionally striking
performances over the course of a slightly lengthy show. The show is playing
in the Film Theater of the Kennedy Center.
Storyline: The relationship between an elderly Jewish butcher on the brink
of bankruptcy and the middle aged black man who works in his shop is
disrupted by the arrival of a sharp witted, blunt speaking black woman. She
has a history that touches the sense of ethnic identity of both men as the
butcher contemplates abandoning his shop and donating it for use by his
synagogue while the black man has hopes of turning it into a blues club.
All
the action takes place on a single set, the spare butcher shop that the
dialogue tells us is doing so poorly that the total take in a day is $26 -
not enough to support a butcher and a helper even in 1955
Omaha where the play is set.
(The four piece band is behind the scrim-covered rear wall of the butcher
shop.) The relationship between the butcher, Joel Snyder, and his helper,
Frederick Strother, is one of affection and respect that seems unaffected by
their ethnic differences. That amity is tested, however, by the arrival of
Andrea Frierson-Toney
Strother brings his strong stage presence and a feel for a blues song to the
part of the butcher’s helper while Frierson-Toney, whose Broadway credits
include such massive projects as The Lion King and Marie
Christine, seems completely at ease on this small, intimate stage. As he
proved in Working at Signature and she proved in The Last Brain
at Studio, both can really sell a blues-tinged song. Joel Snyder also has a
nice touch with a song - in this case more Jewish sorrow than black blues.
But he seems artificial and stilted with scenes of grief and strong emotion.
The
twelve song score by Nelson and her brother Mel (as well as additional
lyrics by their sister Marilyn) features some atmospheric blues and a few
songs designed to give the audience clues into the characters of the three
people on the stage. “The Wandering Jew,” for instance, introduces the
concept of tsuris (Yiddish for “woe”) which underlies the relationship
between the men, while “You’re The World’s Best Charlie” is a nice soft
seduction song and “I Hoped It Was You” a perky club duet. It is not clear
why the Nelsons chose to put to music the butcher’s memory of his late wife
at the end of the show (“Goodnight Selma”). The musical memory most will
carry away from this show, however, is of Strother’s warbling on such blues
songs as “Once I Had A Woman” and “Shut Your Mouth Baby.”
Book by Jennifer
L.Nelson. Lyrics by Jennifer L. Nelson and Mel Nelson with additional lyrics
by Marylin Nelson. Music by Mel Nelson. Directed by Darryl V. Jones. Design:
Tom Donahue (set) LeVonne Lindsay (costumes) Tracie Duncan (properties)
Karin Abromaitis (fight choreography) Dan Covey (lights) Mark Anduss
(sound) Roy A. Gross (stage manager). Cast: Andrea Frierson-Toney, Joel
Snyder, Frederick Strother. Musicians: Michael Birnbaum, Wes Crawford, Mel
Nelson, Bobby Smith, David Whitten. |
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March 28 - April 27, 2003
From the Mississippi Delta |
Reviewed
April 5
Running time 1 hour 25 minutes
t Potomac Stages Pick
|
Creating a portrait of a warm and generous heart in a
character who must operate in a world of challenges, disappointments and
injustices is fraught with theatrical dangers. When that character must
retain the ability to see good in the world, overcome obstacles and change
her society, it is a hard to avoid seeming either mawkish or syrupy. Scot
Reese accomplishes just that with a gentle but strong autobiographical
script by Dr. Endesha Ida Mae Holland and subtly polished performances from
three marvelous actresses including the delightful Jewell Robinson.
Storyline: The play is a series of vignettes from the life of the playwright
who was born into the dirt poor, segregated world that seemed the only world
available to blacks in rural Mississippi at the end of World War II. She
captures both its warm sense of community and its deep sense of danger. She
rose to educational and professional accomplishment through the strength of
her spirit and the opportunities created by the civil rights movement of
which she was a part.
Labeled simply Woman #1, Woman #2 and Woman #3, the cast trade the central
role of the playwright back and forth while also bringing the secondary
characters to light in vignettes constructed in a narrative manner. The play
consistently tells its story rather than enacting it. Sometimes this can be
a weakness in a dramatic work but here it is such a genuine reflection of
its author’s world view and handled so theatrically that the technique
becomes a strength in its own right. No small accomplishment, this.
While
the strength is there in the script, it is the work of director Scot Reese
that is responsible for the remarkable balance between autobiographical
idiosyncrasy and theatrical effectiveness. He keeps everything focused on
the story at hand with no false touches. As a result, the events do play out
and there are real-life variations in manners, motivations and abilities at
work at all the key moments. He has a talented team of designers who came up
with touches such as a playing space defined by a map on the floor with
rivers and streams labeled as events (“Teacher,” “Funeral,” “$5,” etc.) in
front of three cabin porches. With an Ella Fitzgerald blues recording subtly
creating mood, three women emerge to tell their collective stories.
Robinson brings a sense of internal strength to her work that shines from
within as the older part of the troika, while Lynn Chavis contributes a
burning sense of mission and Thembi Duncan captures the young girl’s fears
and hopes. Together, they constitute one very vivid personality, that of the
simple Ida Mae Holland who, in adulthood, added to her name the Swahili word
for “driver,” Endesha.
Written by Dr. Endesha Ida Mae Holland. Directed by Scot Reese. Design:
Timothy J. Jones (set) LeVonne Lindsay (costumes) Harold F. Burgess II
(lights) Greta Dowling (properties) David Lamont Wilson (sound) Roy A.
Gross, Jr. (stage manager). Cast: Lynn Chavis, Thembi Duncan,
Jewell Robinson. |
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February 20 – March 9, 2003
Wedding Dance |
Reviewed February 26
Running time 2 hours
Performed At the Kennedy Center's AFI Theater |
There are at least three shows going on at one time in Dominic A. Taylor’s
five-person play. There is the hip-hop routined view of street life in
modern day Chicago. There is a mother-daughter relationship play in fairly
traditional dialogue tinged with the accent of a black community. These two
worlds intersect in a slight story as the hip-hopers connect in an uncommon
way with the lives of the ladies – one of them shoots one of the others. But
the third show is the one that sets the entire piece apart. It is a fantasy
digression that, instead of providing the glue to connect the other two, is
so poorly inserted into the goings on that it splits them apart. Suddenly
the street-wise thug and the world-wary working woman are trading versions
of fairy tales -- and acting them out with each other. Connecting a
potential prince and a possible princess through a Cinderella sequence has
been made to work in other shows but it has a destabilizing effect on an
already weak structure here.
Storyline: Two street thugs mug a wheelchair ridden woman, only to be chased
away by her gun toting daughter who shoots one of them. Later, the un-shot
thug puts moves on the daughter at her place of work, the children’s section
of the library where they slip into an enactment of the fairy tales that
inhabit the place while the mother in her wheel chair and the thug’s partner
with his crutch from the gunshot wound get a chance to dance at the ball.
The
cast features three returning African Continuum Theatre Company veterans and
two who are making their ACTCo debuts but who are familiar faces in local
companies. Lakeisha Raquel Harrison’s strong stage presence has been noted
at The American Century Theater (Uncle Tom’s Cabin) Theater J (The
Ride Down Mt. Morgan) and Chevy Chase Players (A Raisin in the Sun)
and she doesn’t disappoint here. She gives a sense of dignity to her
character which might escape some actresses trying to struggle out of a
wheelchair to dance at a wedding. The stronger new face, however, is Kevin
Jiggetts who impressed in Rep Stage’s Anna Lucasta directed by
ACTCo’s Jennifer L. Nelson who directed this production as well.
Nelson draws from the ACTCo family for the “Cinderella” of the piece,
Willette Thompson who does just about as much as can be done with a part
that seems to veer between opposing stereotypes (from long-suffering
supporter of a disabled parent to a children’s department version of Marian
the Librarian). The wounded thug is J.J. Johnson who has been in many Nelson
projects including Lucasta. Another veteran is David Lamont Wilson.
Michael C. Stepowany came up with a set design of six large structures on
wheels that are pushed and pulled into a number of arrangements representing
the street world of the thugs, the home of the ladies, the library and the
dream world of the central dream sequence. Wooden slats evoke shuttered
store fronts or library shelves while white cloth backs are fine surfaces
for projected star patterns.
Written by Dominic A.
Taylor. Directed by Jennifer L. Nelson. Fight choreography by Karin
Abromaitis. Design: Michael C. Stepowany (set and lights) LeVonne Lindsay
(costumes) Greta Dowling (properties) Mark Anduss (sound) Clifford L.
Russell, Jr. (photo). Cast: Lakeisha Raquel Harrison, Kevin Jiggetts,
Willette Thompson, J.J. Johnson, David Lamont Wilson. |
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November 14 – December 1,
2002
Blood Knot |
Reviewed November 15, 2002
Running time 2 hours
Performed in the Kennedy Center’s AFI Theater
Price range $20 - $23
t Potomac
Stages Pick |
Never mind the social history aspect of this
production. Concentrate instead on its quality as theater. Here is a play
with an interesting story featuring two intriguing characters performed by
two intelligent actors under the direction of a woman who keeps the focus on
the story where it should be. Director Jennifer L. Nelson trusts the
material to make its own points and takes no extraneous excursions to make
sure the audience understands the political, social and historical points.
As a result, what could have become diatribe, propaganda or polemic remains
intensely human and intrinsically dramatic.Storyline: In a non-white
neighborhood of Port Elizabeth, South Africa in 1960 two brothers share a
single room shack. One is a dark-skinned black while the other is light
enough to "pass." The dark-skinned brother strikes up a pen-pal relationship
with a girl in a distant city not realizing at first that she is white. When
they learn that she may visit and that she expects her pen pal to be a white
man they consider having the light-skinned brother pass himself off as what
she expects to find.
This was the first important play by South African Athol Fugard, whose
plays have become important pieces of history. Here was a white South
African writing about the injustice of apartheid. What was more astonishing
at the time was that he played the "light skinned" brother both in the
original version in 1961 in South Africa and in the revised version that
came to Broadway in 1985. Now, after the fall of Apartheid and the emergence
of South Africa as something of a role model for peaceful transitions from
injustice to something better, performances of the play could become museum
pieces. Nelson doesn’t let this happen.
Nelson’s cast of two are Michael Glenn in his fourth production with this
company and Jefferson A. Russell, whose most recent work was under Nelson
when she directed Anna Lucasta at Rep Stage. While Russell’s work
there seemed a bit quirky, here both deliver the kind of subtle performance
that works well when the parts are as well written as these. The two create
two very different personalities, which is just right given the different
histories of the two characters. Russell, the dark-skinned brother, is an
illiterate laborer while Glenn’s lighter skinned character has both the
education and the social experiences to make the idea of "passing" a
reasonable possibility. Still, there is a bond between these siblings that
transcends either their appearance or their backgrounds.
Tom Donahue’s corrugated tin shack of a set is beautifully lit by Dan
Covey and the costumes of LeVonne D. Lindsay are as eloquently right for the
characters as were her costumes for Sea Marks at MetroStage. The feeling of
the piece is impressively enhanced by the music of Mark Anduss’ sound
design. His delicate underscoring for the most lyrically written scene of
the play makes the brothers’ fascination with a field of butterflies just as
magical as it should be. Anduss is somewhat less successful in the sound for
an alarm clock, which repeatedly appears to come from speakers rather than
from the clock on stage.
Written by Athol Fugard. Directed by Jennifer L. Nelson. Design: Tom
Donahue (set) LaVonne Lindsay (costumes) Dan Covey (lights) Mark Anduss
(sound) Karen Abromaitis (fight choreography) Bill Largess (dialect coach)
Greta Dowling (properties). Cast: Michael Glenn, Jefferson A. Russell. |
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September 7 – October 6, 2002
The Amen Corner |
Reviewed September 18
Running time 2 hours 40 minutes
Performed at the H Street Playhouse
Price range $18 - $21 |
There are gospel musicals and then there are plays with gospel music. This
is one of the strongest of the latter. The music is a glorious, uplifting,
emotional background to a strong dramatic story. It could have been told
without music at all and no one bursts into song to describe their own
emotions, thoughts, or actions, but the evening is all the better because
the gospel music is there to add excitement and a certain seasoning.
Storyline: In Harlem in the 1950’s Sister Margaret, the minister at a
Pentecostal Church, deals with setback after setback as her son grows up and
moves out, the husband she abandoned years before returns in the final
stages of a terminal illness and her congregation looses faith in her
leadership.
Baldwin tells a tale that would seem like a modern retelling of the story
of Job except that there is no visible devil plotting her demise and no
rewarding God to set things right at the end. In Baldwin’s world there was
no expectation of things turning out for the better in the short run but he
used his strong sense of drama and his facility with words to communicate
his view of the problems of his time, a time when denial seemed rampant. (The
Amen Corner preceded works like A Raisin in the Sun by half a
decade.)
As Sister Margaret, Aakhu TuahNera Freeman puts the same passion into her
preaching as in her bewailing the tragedies of her life. She shows us a
strong woman with strong views who thought that she could control her life
but learns otherwise. jaki-terri (who does not use capitals in her name) as
her sister who wants to protect her from the disasters heading her way, and
Nicholas Packer as her son, stand out in a capable cast who give committed
performances in each role.
The cast has to battle the echoes of the hall which has just recently been
converted into a theater and presents a challenge to designers. Greg
Mitchell’s set uses the space well with a highly detailed recreation of both
the Sister’s home and the house of worship that occupied a two story store
front in Harlem. Dan Covey’s lights, being suspended from the low ceiling,
don’t have much space to spread with the result that shadows fall over faces
at many of the wrong places.
Written by James Baldwin. Directed by Darryl V. Jones. Musical
direction and arrangements by Tony Booker with additional piano arrangements
by Nicholas Packer. Design: Greg Mitchell (set) Dan Covey (lights) Kathleen
A. Conery (costumes) Timothy J. Jones (properties) David Lamont Wilson
(sound). Cast: Aakhu TuahNera Freeman, jaki-terry, Nicholas Packer, G.
Alverez Reid, Angela Deniese Polite, Maconnia Chesser, Tony Booker, Angela
Jean Gates, Wanda Lumpkins, Janice Menifee, Stephawn Stephens, David Lamont
Wilson, Jerusa Carl Wilson, Jr.
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February
21 – March 10, 2002
Personal History |
Reviewed February 22
Running time 2 hours 35 minutes |
This world premiere play starts off strong with interesting characters, an
intriguing premise and a flair for language. It begins to falter toward the
end of the first act and descends in the second into a confusing tangle. The
African Continuum Theatre Company gives it a classy presentation with a
great set and fine performances under Jennifer Nelson’s clean and clear
direction.Storyline: The same young black couple placed in three very
different decades of history, the 1900s, the 1950s and the 1990s, face the
challenge of being economically successful African Americans in suburban
Chicago.
KenYatta Rogers and Deidra LaWan Starnes return to the AFI stage where
they were last seen in SPUNK. Rogers is particularly good at the
dialogue of challenge – he asks pointed and potentially predictable
questions like "Why should I take a job as a porter when I have a degree in
Pharmacy?" or "Why wouldn’t buying the finest house in the neighborhood
protect us from the resentment of our white neighbors?" with an earnestness
and innocence that is convincing. Starnes’ performance is impressive as she
goes from delight to distress with sharply defined movements. But both
suffer from the script’s requirement that we believe that the fracturing of
their dreams comes as a complete surprise to these highly intelligent
characters. It is hard to accept, for example, that a young married black
couple who both own successful businesses in Chicago in 1953 would be
surprised to encounter bigotry when the move into a white neighborhood.
Anger? Yes. Determination? Yes. Surprise? Not likely.
The performances of the supporting cast are particularly satisfying.
David Lamont Wilson goes from proper personal servant to street-wise
observer to determined restaurateur in this time-skipping story smoothly,
each one being the same individual but in very different circumstances.
Unfortunately, it falls to him to deliver the final epilogue. He does it
well but it has the feel of being unnecessary. If the play hadn’t made its
point clear by the final five minutes, it would be much too late to clarify
anything then.
Greg Mitchell’s set moves through the century with grace. The stately
home, which finally becomes an up-scale restaurant, is transformed through
the sequential removal of layers of drapes. Kristina Lambdin’s costumes
match the movement through the decades without over doing any one period’s
style. In fact, good taste marks all of the elements of Nelson’s staging. It
is just the script that, while promising and intriguing, still needs work.
Written by Dominic Taylor. Directed by Jennifer L. Nelson. Design:
Greg Mitchell (set) Dan Covey (lights) Kristina Lambdin (costumes) Mark
Anduss (sound) Sara Fox (properties). Cast: KenYatta Rogers, Deidra LaWan
Starnes, David Lamont Wilson, Michael Glenn, Christine Herzog, Scott Sophis. |
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November 15 - 25, 2001
Waiting to be Invited |
Reviewed November 21
Running Time 1 hour 50 minutes |
Theater can do so many things! It can entertain. It can educate. It can
proselytize. It can propagandize. Here is a case of a production that serves
as a mini-time machine, giving an audience the chance to go back to a
momentous time in our history and see just what it was like to be a small
part of big things. It may not be fabulous theater, but it is intriguing
history. The story isn’t of major characters or the central crucial events.
Instead, the side-stories of history illuminate the human dimensions of
bigger forces.Storyline: In 1964 the Supreme Court has ruled that
segregation in public facilities is unconstitutional. Four black women set
out to exercise their right to be served at a department store lunchroom in
Atlanta, Georgia.
The four ladies are played earnestly by Jay Michele Stone with imposing
presence, Cheryl Collins with bravado, Willette Thompson with contained
fears and Kim Barnette with painfully exposed panic. Just to counterbalance,
Rusty Clauss plays a white woman on the bus with them on their trip
downtown. Add Addison Switzer as the bus driver and you have a set of
individuals swept up in the swirl of events through whose eyes the audience
can view the currents of history.
Act one takes place on the bus while act two is set on a bench outside
the newly integrated establishment. Those who find this time-machine
approach to history satisfying will enjoy the exchange of banter, revealing
just what it took to summon the courage to participate in a cultural sea
change. Those who are in search of more theatrical, literary or dramatic
values will probably be disappointed. You know you need something more than
the simple structure of the play when listening to recordings of Martin
Luther King, John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson while watching the stagehands
disassemble the bus set and create the bench set during intermission is a
highlight.
Written by S.M. Shephard-Massat. Directed by Jennifer L. Nelson. Design:
Tom Donahue (set) Reggie Ray (costumes) Micke Daniels (lights) and David
Lamont Wilson (sound.) Cast: Kim Barnette, Rusty Clauss, Cheryl Collins, Jay
Michele Stone, Addison Switzer and Willette Thompson. |
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