"Repairing a Nation" (at the Crossroads Theatre Company through March 8, 2015)

 

 

 Landon Woodson and Stephanie Berry

Photo credit: William M. Brown

The Tulsa Oklahoma race riots of 1921 devastated the prosperous Greenwood section of the city famously known as the "Black Wall Street." That terrible event, during which the local sheriff and bands of whites destroyed homes and businesses, the alleged result of an assault on a white woman by a black man, lasted for two days. It  provides the historic background and the inspiration for Nikkole Salter's domestic drama "Repairing a Nation," now at the Crossroads Theatre.

Set in 2001 eighty years after the riots, or as a character insists on calling it "the Greenwood massacre," the play primarily focuses on the trouble created by the fictitious Davis family's most contentious member. Lois Davis (Stephanie Berry) is a confirmed outsider whose unsettling visit to her cousin "Chuck" (Phil McGlaston) and his wife Anna's (Chantal Jean-Pierre)Tulsa home during the Christmas holidays brings the subject of reparations into sharp relief and with it a very personal focus. The handsome living-room setting designed by Gennie Neuman Lambert also accommodates a large overhead video projection screen.

For starters, Lois wants them to become involved in a class action suit instituted by members of the community who are seeking reparations from the government on behalf of the riots' survivors and kin. Long-standing, deep-seated animosities, regrets and hostilities surface with increased tenacity as Lois, a  semi-estranged, economically challenged, political activist makes no excuses for herself. More importantly, she does she pretend to have much love or even affection for her wealthy cousins despite her unapologetic attempt to get Chuck, as head of the family, to sign a document in support of a congressional proposal to study reparations for African Americans.

Also present are Lois's son Seth (Landon G. Woodson) an NYU student who has been raised since infancy by Anna and Chuck, and whose relationship with his feisty birth mother is, at its best, strained. Also helping Lois in her cause is Seth's former girlfriend, a community advocate currently preparing a memorial at the local cultural center. It is there and where opening and closing scenes take place that a statue will be unveiled in memory of the two-day riots.

It is the community's suit for reparations that serves as the springboard for Salter's characters to become more heatedly embroiled in a disturbing recriminations and disclosures that may, indeed, involve past deceptions, lies and now the very real possibility of reparations among the immediate family members. The Davis family business, a successful janitorial service, survived the riots, but who actually inherited it and owns it comes under question when an old newspaper article/photo comes to light.

While the actors have a tendency to direct their speeches, quite a lot of it is unnecessarily expository (the playwright's device), directly to the audience (a directorial decision by Marshal Jones III to be sure), the performances are, however, vividly realized. Most impressive is Berry, as the proudly snippy and snide Lois. McGlaston is excellent as the blustery and fiercely defensive "Chuck" while Jean-Pierre gets points for being more beautiful and conciliatory than her husband deserves. Moore is charming as the perky "Debbie" and Woodson quite fine as the conflicted Seth.

Salter, whose co-written play "In The Continuum" was a Pulitzer Prize nominee and won the 2005 Outer Critics Circle award for Outstanding New American Play, has written this play to dramatically expand upon actual legislative bill proposed by Rep. John Conyers, Jr. a Congressman that has never made it to committee. This, despite the fact that it is proposed year after year. How great for Salter that her plays do make it past committee and get onto the stage: four premieres this season with "Repairing a Nation" being her first to be produced at the Crossroads Theatre Company.

"Repairing a Nation"

Crossroads Theatre Company, 7 Livingston Avenue, New Brunswick

(732) 545 - 8100 or  www.crossroadstheatrecompany.org

Tickets: $25.00 - $45.00

Remaining Performances: Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays at 8 pm; Saturdays and Sundays at 3 pm. Student matinee March 4 at 10 am.

"Rasheeda Speaking" (Opened February 11, 2015 at the Pershing Square Signature Theater)

---

Tonya Pinkins and Diane Wiest

(photo: Monique Carboni)

 

The New Group is now enjoying its first season at the Pershing Square Signature Theatre. Starting off their relationship with the contentious and provocative "Rasheeda Speaking" by Chicago-based and produced playwright Joel Drake Johnson is a good idea and likely to prompt some lively conversations. Johnson, who, while unfamiliar to me, has had considerable success and earned praise for a number of his plays produced in Chicago.

The need to talk about a play right after seeing it isn't a habit of mine, as I like to digest the experience, purposely avoiding the pitfalls of post-play conversation. Which is to say that the subject and themes that are contained in "Rasheeda Speaking" were so unsettling and confounding that I could barely contain myself from asking questions, debating the play's implications, and also considering the distinct possibility that maybe I didn't really get it.

What I did get and is not a matter for contention is the top-notch acting under the taut, precise direction of award-winning actor Cynthia Nixon, making her directorial debut. About race and racism, friendship and loyalty, professionalism and expertise, right-and-wrong-doing in the workplace, "Rasheeda Speaking" takes place in the office/reception room of Chicago surgeon David Williams (Darren Goldstein) in which the duties are shared by Jaclyn (Tonya Pinkins,) who is black and Ileen (Dianne Wiest,) who is white. Oh, the surgeon is white and, as we learn at the beginning, isn't happy with Jaclyn whom he hired six months ago.

Hoping to find good reasons to let her go, he asks Ileen, whom he has recently given a raise and made office manager, to keep a journal of things that Jaclyn does and says that will support his decision before it gets to Human Resources. Things turn both sour and ugly when Jaclyn discovers the journal and proceeds vindictively but also craftily to hold her ground, part of which means implementing a pernicious, if not altogether preposterous, plot to test Ileen's credibility and challenge her sanity. Caught between pleasing her boss and keeping her uneasy relationship under control, Ileen is loath to openly accuse Jaclyn of anything even as Jaclyn proceeds to make each succeeding day a living hell for Ileen

A long-time employee, Ileen is conscientiously accommodating to the patients, notably Rose (Patricia Conolly,) an older woman who unwittingly falls into the trap of saying things that are no longer considered socially/politically correct, and spoken particularly in response to Jaclyn's abrasively cool and condescending manner toward her.

At turns nasty and nice, vile and apologetic, capricious and callous, Jaclyn is a complicated woman whose actions and attitude appear predicated on what she has endured prior to getting this job, which for her is a step up. Her agenda appear to be as calculated as they are revelatory, especially as it relates the play's title: Rasheeda being the code word among white males to identify the black women they see on the bus on the way to work. Aware that her job is in peril, Jaclyn feels obliged to retaliate against what she perceives as actions motivated by racism.

If you recall the husband's machinations to drive his wife crazy in the classic film "Gaslight," you can imagine some of the stuff Jaclyn pulls just as she artfully manipulates the situation to support her stand to keep her job. She has, in her opinion, been living up to and beyond the demands of the job, despite complaining that there are toxins in the air that make her ill. What makes the course of the play so intriguing, are the contradictions and the variables that prompt Jaclyn's actions, Ileen's timidity, and Dr. Williams' duplicity.

Sharp and snappy, the dialogue perks with innuendos  and invectives that keep us in the thrall of the two women and their respective survival techniques. A fan of multi-award winner  Pinkins' performances in musicals ("Caroline, or Change," "Jelly's Last Jam,") she gives a searing portrayal of a woman who as close to being a virulent  sociopath as she is an impassioned provocateur for equal rights. Wiest is a terrific actor who always gets closer to the bone than even the playwright could hope, and does this as the besieged and belittled Ileen whose defenses may not be quite as vulnerable as she lets on. Veteran actor Conolly is convincing as the clueless patient and Goldstein is persuasive as the spineless Dr. Williams. There is nothing spineless about this play, perhaps only that it careens a bit recklessly and relentlessly toward its improbable conclusion. Nevertheless, "Rasheeda Speaking" says it like it is, whether Human Resources buys it or not.

"Rasheeda Speaking" (through March 22, 2015)

The Romulus Linney Courtyard Theatre, 480 West 42nd Street

"The Lion" and "The Bullpen"

"The Lion" and "The Bullpen" are two very different one-person shows but both are worthwhile and entertaining. "The Lion" has returned to New York for an extended commercial run at the Lynn Redgrave Theater at Culture Project. It was acclaimed during its brief sold-out run last summer at the New York City Center Stage II. "The Bullpen" continues to extend and extend again its successful run at the Players Theater.

"The Lion" 

---

Benjamin Scheuer (photo: Matthew Murphy)

Having missed seeing "The Lion" during its short run last summer at the New York City Center Stage II, its return has afforded me the opportunity to appreciate as well as embrace this emotionally effecting solo musical autobiographical journey written, composed and performed by Benjamin Scheuer. Weaving through its mostly sung narrative is a cycle of pop-rock songs by which the good-looking, amiable, personable and charming (what more could you ask for?) thirty-something Scheuer musically relates to us his difficult childhood, his terrible relationship with his father, his estrangement from his family, an unhappy marriage and his long, debilitating and painful bout with stage 4 Hodgkins lymphoma. But he easily captures our attention as he wins our hearts from the moment he sits on a chair playing the first of the five guitars with which he is surrounded.

Accomplished with all of the guitars at easy reach, excluding the significant toy instrument - "Cookie-tin-Banjo" - which he nevertheless sings about in a song and that frames his musical narrative. That instrument now locked in his memory was given to him in his youth by his father, a man who loved playing music but who suffered from severe depression. He sadly took his suffering and pain out on Ben, the oldest of three boys who grew up unable to reconcile with him before his untimely death. Scheuer covers a lot of territory in only seventy minutes that include his adventures traversing between New York and England where he was raised and where his semi-estranged mother lived and then back to New York to work through difficult familial relationships, a disastrous love affair, and surviving a horrifying illness. . .   through which he learns what it means to roar like a lion. The songs are tuneful, and the lyrics captivating, a winning combination in this mini-bio musical that has been fine tuned by director Sean Daniels. Scheuer's story-in-song is as rewarding and inspiring as any you are likely to hear told from any stage this season.

"The Lion" (at the Lynn Redgrave Theater, 45 Bleecker St. New York, NY)

For Tickets ($26.00 to $75.00) call 212 - 260 - 8250

 "The Bullpen"

Joe Assadourian (photo: Bella Muccari)

Serving as well as surviving significant time in a prison cell sadly doesn't always reform, change or redefine a criminal. But it definitely helped to make a terrific actor out of Joe Assadourian whose twelve-year stint behind bars evidently gave him time to develop and polish what appears to have been an innate talent for impersonation,  differentiating body language and insinuating human behavior that is as often as appallingly funny as it also appropriately repelling. In "The Bullpen," under the abetting direction of Richard Hoehler, Assadourian plays eighteen characters including himself. Before being convicted of shooting a friend in the derriere during an argument, he is confined in the proverbial bullpen where he hopefully awaits his bail hearing. There, he has plenty of time to listen and interact with what seems to those of us safely in our seats as the dregs of humanity, that is excluding this husky lug who quickly takes us into his confidence but more humorously and vociferously into the  personas of his inmates. . .of both sexes and of both sexual persuasions. Out of this experience comes his play, a compelling exercise of humanity in exile.

During the interminable waiting time, these savvy but unsavory types put on a mock trial in front of a mock judge. Assadourian makes no concessions or allowances for either the illiteracy of some or for the surprisingly brainy streetwise rhetoric of others, but each has a distinct voice, although some are hard to understand. He has the most fun playing the creepiest of the lot (I won't be a spoiler) but he also makes sure that he pokes fun and holes in the justice system as he takes on the roles of the defense and prosecuting attorneys who apparently know more that the real ones that he also confronts and portrays. Assadourian may not have the handsomest face on the block, but he is ultimately ingratiating and is as invaluable and informed a guide into an underworld that we are grateful to only observe from afar...with the little black box that is the Players Theater as close to a bullpen as most of us are likely to see.

"The Bullpen" (at the Playroom Theater, 151 West 46th Street

 212-967-8278, stepinthebullpen.com.