Tag Archives: Jonathan Caldwell

BNS Conquers Adversity in Opening of Speakeasy, Shining at the New Parr Center

Review: Speakeasy by Rory D. Sheriff

 By Perry Tannenbaum

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February 17, 2023, Charlotte, NC – Quick adaptation and a be-ready-for-anything state of mind are key survival tools for any performer who ventures into the minefield of live performance. But as opening night for BNS Productions’ Speakeasy inched closer, booked for this weekend at the new Parr Center – where no local theatre company has performed before – Charlotte’s preeminent black repertory company stepped on an explosive they couldn’t avoid. Just before the three-day run was scheduled to begin, one of their lead players came down with COVID.

Rory D. Sheriff, the author of the new script and founding artistic director of BNS, was forced to shuffle his cast, elevating Marcus Looney from a minor role to leading man while stepping into the vacated role himself. Both of these actors appeared on opening night, turning what would ordinarily be termed a workshop production into a rather fancy reading stage effort, enhanced by the scenery and lighting (also by Sheriff) we would expect in a full production, with six of the eight cast members off-book.

A couple of the main themes in Sheriff’s new work, starting over and working together to save the day, mesh well with the behind-the-scenes tumult. After leaving her abusive husband, Virginia is hoping to make a new life for herself – without a man, for a change – back at her dead parents’ home in 1978 Reading, Pennsylvania. Doing this her way is hindered by her wanton sister Marge, who is tirelessly “pimping” the newly-available Virginia around town, and the inevitable pursuit of men who have heard about the breakup.

The most aggressive of these is Percy, the horny neighborhood cable guy. On top of that, while leering at Marge, the mailman delivers an alarming formal letter informing Virginia that her parents left their property taxes unpaid for over 10 years. She must quickly come up with over $1000 or get out. Older brother Roosevelt, a starchy preacher man, would much rather sell the place than provide her sister with the balance.

Well, if you already have a cable guy and a mailman knocking at your door and salivating, Marge proposes that Virginia do the next best thing to prostituting herself: jointly turning the family homestead into a speakeasy, where local men can pay out to enjoy the sisters’ company in exchange for alcoholic beverage, assorted snacks, and free cable TV, courtesy of Percy. Prohibition hasn’t returned to Pennsylvania, but the sisters can’t legally peddle booze without a state license.2023~Speakeasy-09

A volatile triangle develops before intermission as Percy feels entitled to take further advantage of Virginia, spending the night and tiptoeing out the back door with the speakeasy’s take. Hard to report a crime like that to police. Virginia might have a white knight willing to champion her cause, a Winston-Salem refugee named Horse who has fallen hard for her, but she keeps pushing him away even after he wins Marge’s sincere endorsement. Cecilia McNeill has taken on a very conflicted role in Virginia, earning our empathy with her troubles while drawing our impatience – and occasionally our annoyance – with her negativity and her deafness to what Marge, Horse, and her own heart are telling her about her new beau.

McNeill carried it all off rather brilliantly in her auspicious debut if you consider how little time she had been given to acclimate to Looney as her co-star and how often her true love had to gaze downwards at his script. It was hugely helpful that Looney was off-book when he made his first entrances through the back door to the sisters’ speakeasy, and that after intermission, when he always had his script with him, he prioritized memorizing those lines where Horse should be gazing most intently at Virginia instead of the script. Otherwise, the role never appeared to be beyond Looney’s depth. A lingering photo at the BNS website of Jonathan Caldwell, originally cast as Horse, made me think that Virginia’s worries about him tossing her over would be more credible if he were there. If it were Caldwell standing up to Tim Bradley as Percy when the action peaked, I also suspect that it would have looked more like an equal match and not as brave or quixotic.2023~Speakeasy-12

Such alterations are always the byproduct of casting different actors in the same role. Sheriff can make peace with them or he could possibly like them better, but I’m sure that he would hate to discard Bradley with his imposing presence and his boisterous vulgarity. Horse the outsider and Percy the loose cannon are the two men that remind me most readily of the American Century drama cycle by August Wilson, an inspiration that Sheriff candidly acknowledges. Having appeared in three different BNS productions of Wilson’s dramas – and importing an extra roar from the title role in Sheriff’s Be a Lion – Bradley straddles those two realms magnificently, a lowlife rascal who can be quite formidable and menacing.

Alana Jones, Bradley’s slinky consort in Lion, is a bit over-directed and overly frisky here as Marge, her broad comedy projecting far beyond the stage and hall to faraway Gaston County. But the audience adored her, so Jones will likely continue mincing around her speakeasy like a cartoon cat. The contrast is certainly effective when she becomes candid and caring with Virginia. A bit of a clothes horse, Jones is my prime suspect for slowing down scene changes, for costume designer Dee Abdullah’s ample wardrobe has her feverishly changing costumes whenever she’s not sashaying onstage. I’d be surprised if she wears less than five get-ups, but the guys also have multiple outfits.

All the guys are nicely seasoned and excellent, providing additional Wilson flavoring. Dominic Weaver as Roosevelt puts a nice soft spot for Virginia in the middle of his sanctimonious hauteur that we can see from the beginning, when the upright minister is difficult, obstinate, and stingy. In his BNS debut, Andrew C. Roberts gives us some meaty civil-rights-movement context in a powerfully delivered monologue, although it seems to come from nowhere. James Lee Walker, II, has done so many uniquely stylish roles for BNS and other companies around town that I was not at all surprised to see him shine – in one scene literally shine in a glittery shirt.

A bit of the stilted dialogue we heard an opening night will likely vanish as Sheriff refines his script, and more variety in how extended monologues are staged and lit will likely materialize in the hands of a defter director. For starters, the guys might explicitly confirm what card game they’re playing at the speakeasy and which Ali fight they’re watching on TV. Feedback that Sheriff receives from this workshop edition will likely help him to sharpen his characters’ sparring and deepen their drama. He and BNS are off to a great start at their new venue.

Great Caesar’s Ghost Heads for the Hills

Review: Julius Caesar from Free Reign Theatre Company

By Perry Tannenbaum

 

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It’s an odd juxtaposition, that’s for sure. In reviving Julius Caesar, Free Reign Theatre Company has taken what is arguably Shakespeare’s most urban tragedy and transported it to Historic Rural Hill, a 15-minute drive from the nearest town, suburban Huntersville. Coming by way of I-77 and the I-485 beltway to the Sunday matinee, we may have seen one traffic light after exiting the highways and entrusting our destiny to Google Maps.

When you arrive, you turn off a narrow winding paved road onto a narrower, arrow-straight gravel road that carves through a grassy rise, two rustic buildings looming at the top. On a sunny Sunday afternoon, the simple colors and weathered wooden structures of the place reminded me of Christina’s World at first blush, Andrew Wyeth’s masterwork. Even as we parked, it seemed unlikely that either of these buildings could be a theater. The shed at our right seemed too small, and the barn-like building in front of us seemed to be serving a different purpose.

The sheer number of cars in the makeshift lot gave me the sinking feeling that we were in the wrong place. The family emerging from another car did not have the look of theatergoers heading to see Julius Caesar. God help us.

Moving closer, I still felt that the old building might be serving as a café, with customers or picnickers mulling around under a ramshackle awning at the side. Wide double doors facing us didn’t seem to be in use, so we headed to the other side of this barn, where things finally began to make sense.

A long file of food trucks was aligned down the slope at the other side of the rise, explaining the phenomenal number of cars that had parked. The doors at this side of the big barn proved to be the entrance to Free Reign’s makeshift theater, extending all the way to the other end of the building. Actually, this theater extended beyond its rear wall – for those people who seemed to be dining al fresco on the other side were really Free Reign’s acting troupe.

Most of the backstage maneuvering in this production actually happens outdoors, with just a narrow corridor behind the temporary stage devoted to entrances and exits. Stage manager Megan Hirschy already had the comings and goings of the 17-person cast running with admirable precision by the time we witnessed the fourth performance, but could she really do it without a stash of Tylenol or other medicinals?

We couldn’t have mistaken the Roman citizens, senators, tribunes, tradesmen, or Caesar for picnickers if costume designer Heather Bucsh – and director Robert Brafford – had opted for the ancient attire from Italian fashionistas that was trendy in March of 44 B.C. Judging by the half dozen Caesars I’ve seen since the turn of the millennium (in Oregon, Canada, High Point, and Charlotte), it would be a novel idea these days to revert to authentic dress.

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Not surprising. The tensions in this tragedy between representative government and autocracy, freedom and slavery, those in power and those scheming to overthrow them – all of these resonate with us more readily in the New World than the dynastic Old-World struggles and power grabs that typify Shakespeare’s histories and dramas. For some odd reason, the approval of the common folk seems to matter in Julius Caesar, and that naturally appeals to Americans.

Because Shakespeare views Caesar, Mark Antony, and Marcus Brutus with such admirable objectivity, it has always been fairly easy for actors and directors to tip the scales one way or the other – to make this Caesar’s tragedy or Brutus’s – or to balance Brutus equally with his adversaries, making them both tragic victims. In Elizabethan days, Shakespeare’s contemporaries would have been more likely outraged by any opposition or treachery against a monarch. For generations, Antony’s funeral speech would be memorized as if it were gospel.

Today’s audiences are more cognizant of Antony’s cunning. The laughter that rang out at Historic Rural Hill as Ted Patterson delivered the famed oration was partially directed at Antony for his transparent manipulativeness. Mostly, it was aimed at the notion that “We, the people” would fall for it. We would need to be very rustic indeed for that to happen.

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Patterson lets us see, with a choice expression or three, how Antony marvels at how easy it is to sway a Roman mob, not exactly the same valiant and vulnerable romantic hero we find in Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra. That’s enough to ensure that our sympathies will lean toward Brutus, but Russell Rowe gives us an extra nudge as Caesar, a little bit more arrogant, pompous, and egotistical than we might expect from a benevolent ruler – and a little less tender and empathetic towards his wife, Calpurnia, who pays more heed to soothsayers and bad dreams.

Offstage, Caesar is rejecting a crown three times during the opening scenes, but we actually see Brutus rebuffing Cassius when he repeatedly urges taking action, fearing that Caesar will relent, accept a throne, and become invincible. Both of the main adversaries show character, but Devin Clark as Brutus is clearly the gentler of the two. With just spare scenery at his disposal, Brafford shrewdly distinguishes between the dignity of Caesar’s household and the humbleness of Brutus’s at the other end of the stage.

There is also a palpable difference between the wives. Lauren Duckworth is regal as Calpurnia rather than adoring: when she counsels her husband against venturing out to the Capitol on the Ides of March, we assume that she’s angling to reign for decades as Empress of Rome. Alexandria Creech is definitely more submissive as Brutus’s wife, Portia, more intimate and seductive.

2022~Julius Caesar-31Both men give in to their wives, but Caesar’s yielding to Calpurnia is only temporary, largely because Cal has overstepped while Portia asks for less. More to the point, both leaders give in to their most potent political allies, Caesar finally deigning to accept a crown from Antony and The Senate, Brutus agreeing to join Cassius and his cronies in their assassination plot.

Off my radar since her college days 12 years ago, Chelsea Hunter is instantly sensational as Cassius. Along with Patterson, Rowe, and Clark, Hunter has one of the strongest voices onstage, so her Cassius is formidable and authoritative as well persuasive – perhaps even intimidating, notwithstanding Clark’s impressive sangfroid. What seems strange in this modernized Caesar, with its colorblind and gender-blind casting, is that Brafford didn’t cross a final frontier and change the pronouns of the text to suit his players.

Two thousand years after Caesar’s death – and 300 after Shakespeare’s – it’s perfectly ordinary to find women scheming and mixing it up with fellow politicos. So why hesitate?

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Brafford’s reluctance became most problematic and comical with Jess Johnson’s unmistakably feminine – and gossipy – take on Casca. Giving Cassius and Brutus the lowdown on Antony thrice offering the crown and Caesar turning it down with increasing reluctance, Johnson was repeatedly flapping open an oriental fan to punctuate her narrative. This mode of exposition was pretty hilarious and hard to quibble with, particularly in recounting what we know, we know, we know.

Johnson’s demonstrative antics were also handy at a matinee on a hot afternoon when the building’s AC was waging war against the heat outside, victorious against the torrid temperature but also against all but the loudest voices. Conditions for hearing all the actors and getting the full impact of the lighting are undoubtedly better at evening performances, and a boost for Great Caesar’s Ghost. But whoever had his or her hand on the switch should be coping with cooler weather next Sunday’s matinee – and better aware of the AC overkill this week that had some members of the audience rubbing their arms or shivering.

Less AC would be a win-win for noise and comfort.

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The view outside at Historic Rural Hill is likely pretty hectic during a performance, for more than half the cast is doubling, tripling, or more to play all the roles that Shakespeare prescribed. Brafford himself took on four roles aside from directing. My favorites among these platooned players were Jonathan Caldwell as the sassy Cobbler in the opening scene, Kristin Varnell as the spooky Soothsayer, and the inimitable David Hensley as Lucilius, the slimeball who hilariously impersonates Brutus in the heat of battle.

Best of all, though, is the chameleonic Katie Bearden, who plays no fewer than five roles, including Decius Brutus, surely the most underappreciated role in all of Shakespeare. For Decius undoes Calpurnia’s persuasion, reinterprets her prophetic dream, and with sly flattery convinces Caesar to come on down and accept the crown from The Senate. These are feats of dissembling and oratory worthy of Mark Antony, with no less impact on Roman history.

What was conspicuous for me in 2022 watching Julius Caesar – what I overlooked when I previously saw it at Spirit Square in 2014 – was the complete lack of dialogue between Brutus and Caesar before differences between them were settled with violence. Very much like America now and then, only so much more obvious today.

Brooklyn Grace Receives a Classic Museum

Review: BNS Productions Presents The Colored Museum

By Perry Tannenbaum

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In every decade since it premiered Off-Broadway at the Public Theater in 1986, George C. Wolfe’s The Colored Museum has had a homegrown revival here in Charlotte. GM Productions premiered it up in the Attic Theatre at the old Afro-Am Cultural Center on 7th Street in 1993, and Carolina Actors Studio Theatre brought it to their C.A.S.T. location out in Plaza-Midwood ten years later. On Q Productions finally smuggled Wolfe’s 11 vignettes – or “exhibits” – into an Uptown site at Spirit Square in 2011.

Now BNS Productions has brought Colored Museum to its unlikeliest location, the Brooklyn Grace Venue, alias the Grace AME Zion Church on S Brevard Street. Each new revival more fully cements Wolfe’s satire as a classic – Winthrop U and UNC Charlotte have also chimed in with productions since 2009 – and each new resurrection that I see strikes me as fresh and hilarious as the first.

Of course, nothing compares with the edge and impact of your maiden encounter. Wolfe hurls a few choice barbs at white folk, mostly mocking their bland cruelty, but armed with an all-Black cast, it’s African-Americans and their culture that he assails with the most conspicuous gusto. All Colored Museum casts get to feast most hilariously on the sufferings and posturings of the Younger family in Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun. Walter Lee’s wailings against “the man” in this “Last Mama-On-The-Couch Play” take a detour into Beau Willie Brown’s barbarity in Ntozake Shange’s for colored girls.CCC02756

Familiarity with those two stage gems helps you to savor Graham Williams, Sr.’s over-the-top brilliance as Walter-Lee-Beau-Willie, but his reappearance, immediately after intermission, as The Man only magnifies his triumph. For Wolfe delights especially in depicting the disfigurements that black people inflict upon themselves to survive and succeed in white America. The Kid, played by Jonathan Caldwell, must now disown and discard his Afro-comb, dashiki, autographed Stokely Carmichael photo, Afro-sheen, Jimi Hendrix and Sly Stone recordings, along with Eldridge Cleaver’s Soul on Ice – replaced, The Man tells him, by The Color Purple.

Black Power and protest must be tossed into the trashcan along with slavery if you wish to get to the top. The Kid is dismayed, incredulous, and beside himself when The Man reaches for… The Temptations Greatest Hits! Yes, if The Man is to feel totally comfortable in his black business suit and fully acclimate to white blandness, even “My Girl” must bite the dust.CCC02782

Women also get choice bits from Wolfe, beginning with Nasha Shandri as our prim stewardess, Miss Pat, welcoming us aboard Celebrity Slaveship and inviting us to fasten our shackles as we cross the Atlantic to Savannah. Dancing in the aisles seems to be allowed during our voyage – as long as we keep our shackles on – but “No drums!” Of course, we will get a bluesy cooking lesson from Sandra Thomas as Aunt Ethel, teaching us, with abundant historical ingredients, how to cook up “a batch of Negroes.” Uncanny Aunt Jemima resemblance here.

Shandri and Thomas both reappear in “The Last Mama-On-The-Couch,” with Thomas in the title role switching from cheery to grumpy and Shandri upbraiding Walter-Lee-Beau-Willie (and cataloguing her own sufferings) as Medea Jones, a subtle reminder that white folk are also known to drop babies from great heights. Most of this skit targets Raisin, of course, with Toi Aquila R.J. as Lady in Plaid serving as Shange’s leading Colored Girls emissary.

Meanwhile James Lee Walker, II, has a tasty role as our narrator, bestowing an Oscar-like statuette upon one actress after a heart-rending monologue and then ripping it out of her grasp when the next actress tops her.CCC02580

Walker has already topped himself as the regal, finger-snapping drag queen who imparts “The Gospel According to Miss Roj.” Revisiting Wolfe’s Museum, director Dee Abdullah limits herself to the crossdressing that’s in the script. In 2003, by contrast, Aunt Ethel and Last Mama were also done in drag. But Abdullah brings back Chris Thompson from the CAST production, so the West African choreography at Brooklyn Grace – and the forbidden drumming – have the same sparkle.CCC02717-1

Acoustically, the Grace isn’t ideal for theatre, nor is the place outfitted for professional-grade lighting design. But Abdullah, Sandra Thomas, and Shacana Kimble compensate, teaming up for an admirable array of costumes, from the frumpiness of Last Mama to the imperious splendor of Roj – and on the other side of intermission, the voguish gown of LaLa Lamazing Grace, an expatriated Josephine Baker wannabe done with slaying disdain by Jess Johnson. Until her down-home roots are exposed.CCC02449

In “Hairpiece,” Shandri plays a woman who has literally burnt her roots. Or as Johnson puts it as LaWanda, “She done fried, dyed, and de-chemicalized her shit to death.” All to please the man that Shandri is now dumping. LaWanda is actually a talking wig stand, facing us on a makeup table (and presumably Shandri as well in a fourth-wall mirror). She’s debating whether her owner should be shaking her hot-pressed tresses back and forth when she irately gives her boyfriend the ax, or whether Janine, the Afro wig contemptuously advocated by LaTonya Lewis, should be the fearsome choice to make him shrivel.

While the wigs are debating whether Shandri is most powerful in her natural or chemicalized crown, it’s easy to forget the satirical barb that Wolfe has tossed toward the menfolk. The finally-dispensable boyfriend was a “political quick-change artist,” Janine dishes. Every time “he changed his ideology, she went and changed her hair to fit the occasion.”

Style is important, that’s for sure. Aside from Raisin, the most sacred cow that Wolfe takes down is Ebony Magazine, the barbershop bible of African-American life. Lewis and Williams are the supermodel couple of “The Photo Shoot” who have given away their lives to be beautiful and wear fabulous clothes month after month. Relentlessly smiling and feeling no pain.

Perhaps the wisest thing about Wolfe’s Museum – the good, the bad, the ugly, and the absurd – is that it’s simply there. Do with it as you wish.

“The ultimate questions from Wolfe apply with a fierce pertinence to all oppressed peoples,” I wrote in response to Abdullah’s 2003 production with CAST. “How do we carry the baggage of the past into the future without hampering and crippling ourselves? And how do we leave this baggage behind without discarding key parts of our culture, our heritage, and our identity? These grim questions go unanswered, but watching this energized ensemble wrestling with them will likely double you over with laughter.”

Can’t improve very much on those observations – unless I compress them for 2022 into Wolfe’s words. At the beginning of our journey and again at evening’s end, our stewardess, Miss Pat, tells us: “Before exiting, check the overhead as any baggage you don’t claim, we trash.”

That’s the key choice Wolfe aims to leave us with.

Much of the Ambiance Is Trimmed from “A Time to Kill,” but the Mississippi Murder Trial Still Sizzles

Review:  A Time to Kill

By Perry Tannenbaum

Rupert Holmes has built a distinguished theatre career – and carved out his own special niche – by crafting mysteries for the Broadway stage. His Accomplice won an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America when it played on Broadway in 1990, and after his Thumbs premiered successfully in Charlotte, it seemed Broadway-bound in 2001. Holmes’ most unique accomplishments are his two mystery musicals, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, adapted from Charles Dickens’ unfinished novel, and Curtains, a Holmes original. So it’s not at all surprising that Holmes would be the first playwright to adapt a John Grisham bestseller for the stage when he brought A Time to Kill to the Great White Way in 2013. As the current Theatre Charlotte production demonstrates, adapting Grisham’s first novel for the stage was a tall order.

Admitting that film would be a more comfortable medium for this story, director Dave Blamy conspires with set and lighting designer Chis Timmons to wedge in some clips, prefacing the action with evocations of a horrific rape of a 10-year-old girl and, deep in the story, flashing the handiwork of the Ku Klux Klan on the darkened upstage wall. From the outset, you can presume that Timmons’ design for Judge Edwin Noose’s Mississippi courtroom isn’t going anywhere. It is so sturdy and stately that you may be tempted to rise when the judge enters to launch Act 1. But Timmons manages to swivel the entire courtroom 90° during intermission, adding a sidecar to the judge’s bench that serves – somewhat shakily – as a witness box. When we adjourned to the judge’s chamber, other parts of the courthouse, or defense attorney Jake Brigance’s home, there were discreet furniture shifts while the lights were dimmed. They worked well enough.

Unfortunately, Grisham’s canvas is larger. Though we watch Billy Ray Cobb and Pete Willard confess to the rape and attempted murder of little Tonya in vivid Mississippi detail, we never see her father, Carl Lee Hailey, taking vengeance upon these perverts. Thanks to Christy Edney Lancaster’s sound design, we can hear the chants of protesters outside the courthouse when Carl Lee goes on trial for murder, but we cannot see the mob’s fury. When hostilities break out between black supporters of the defendant and KKK racists, we’re shielded from the riot, and when the National Guard moved in… I wasn’t sure that was even mentioned in the script.

Clocking in at a hefty 2:17, plus a 20-minute intermission, the production won’t seem skimpy at all. Instead of any prolonged attention to the KKK, Holmes takes us more intently into Jake’s defense efforts behind the scenes, bringing extra emphasis to whip-smart legal assistant Ellen Roark, disbarred attorney Lucien Wilbanks, and the pillar of the defense’s case, Dr. W.T. Bass. The psychiatrist is recruited for the purpose of confirming that Carl Lee committed the double murder while suffering from temporary insanity, but it quickly became apparent that Wilbanks had made Bass’s acquaintance in a barroom during one of his frequent sprees. For better and worse, suspense and thrills now rest on the outcome of the trial, not on the survival of Carl and Jake in the face of KKK mob mentality. We’re also called upon to hate district attorney Rufus Buckley a little bit more, for his smarmy courtroom confidence and his undisguised political ambitions.

A slick, relatively bloodless package like this would have worked better if it were performed more slickly. Blamy pushes in that direction, but Grisham’s main characters are defined by their back-stories, and their development is further hampered by the formality that legal proceedings – arraignments, pleadings, motions, and trials – impose on dialogue. All combined, the length, formality, and pervasive legalese of A Time to Kill may account for the fact that actors were stumbling over their lines more frequently on this opening night than at any show I can remember at Theatre Charlotte.

Best at handling it was Jim Greenwood, who managed to add a bumbling element to Judge Noose’s crusty old persona. The opposing attorneys, both superbly cast, didn’t break character when struggling for their next phrases, but I could detect definite cracks. Tasked with sustaining a villainous patina, Conrad Harvey was more afflicted by these lapses as the DA, but all was well when he hopped back onto the rails and he flashed his Trumpian smile to the jury. Wonderfully loathsome. Costume designer Chelsea Retalic probably had Atticus Finch in mind when she drew up Jake’s courtroom attire for Tim Hager and the analogy was often apt when Hager grew simply eloquent. But he’d be better off drawing upon Jake’s fallibility when he falters.

Hager was at his best when Jake in maneuvering behind the scenes. Wheeling and dealing are not his style. Steadfast in his beliefs, Hager seemed to get that Jake wasn’t as comfortable in his skin as those surrounding him. As the brainy, beautiful, and ambitious Roark, Jennifer Barnette knew exactly what the legal assistant wants from her gig with Jake and why she finds him attractive. Both Tom Schrachta as Lucien and Rick Taylor as Dr. Bass projected their dissoluteness without too much exaggeration – but more than enough to merit Jake’s alarm – and both of them get tasty opportunities to sober up. Neither of them missed the comical lagniappe that came with their changes.

With so much of the Mississippi ambiance trimmed away like so much gristle, it was a godsend that the black players were all so right. Ronald Jenkins registered Sheriff Ozzie Walls’ conflicted loyalties beautifully, as committed to protecting Carl Lee and seeing that justice is done as he was to keeping his prisoner in custody. As a vengeful father, thoughtless husband, and a somewhat immature man, Jonathan Caldwell had a lot of different feelings to navigate as Carl Lee, from savage rage to sheepish regret, but he wisely stayed steadfast in his belief that murdering those two bragging racists was the right thing. Yet there was deep understanding in Tracie Frank’s portrayal of Gwen Hailey, Carl’s wife. Carl defies her when he chooses Jake to defend him instead of the NAACP, who are willing to come in and do it without a fee. Frank was out there alone to give Carl Lee’s defiance substantial weight. Without Frank’s steely strength, Jake’s victory – and Carl Lee’s vindication for choosing him – wouldn’t have been as sweet. Her quiet acknowledgement seals the verdict.

Fire, Fury, and Painful Memories Drive Wilson’s “Jitney”

Review: Jitney

 

By Perry Tannenbaum

Allowing for inflation and cost-of-living increases since 1977, fares at Becker’s Car Service seem to be fiercely competitive – so competitive that the five cab drivers at the core of August Wilson’s Jitney all seem to be barely scraping by. The drivers’ lounge, adorned with a decaying Ali-Frazier poster, has a ramshackle look to it with a dust-colored couch held together by generous swaths of duct tape.

We never see whether the drivers’ jitneys (slang for gypsy cabs) are in any better repair than this crumbling HQ, but the idea seeps in that the struggling black customers in the Hill district of Pittsburgh are in no position to press the point. Early on in this fine BNS Productions effort at Spirit Square, director Corlis Hayes pushes the pace hard enough for us to assume that we’re in the midst of an urban rush hour.

These are men in a hurry – who aren’t necessarily getting anywhere. Pretty much the same can be said for Wilson’s story until Becker himself arrives. He takes off a fedora hat and lays down a satchel, signs that he’s better off than his employees, but he takes turns answering the phone – a pay phone – and giving rides. Still not rushing his story along in his flurry of driver entrances and exits, Wilson has Becker announcing two key strands of the plot.

After keeping it from his drivers a little longer than he should, Becker tells Doub, his steadiest driver, that the city has earmarked the property for urban renewal. The Car Service office will be boarded up in a matter of weeks. If that weren’t enough upheaval, Becker’s son Booster is getting out of the slammer after serving 20 years for murder. Becker never visited his son even once during his incarceration, so this does not figure to be a joyous reunion.

If you’ve seen Wilson’s Fences recently, you will likely find echoes of Troy Maxson in the elder Becker’s sternness and stubbornness. If anything, the father-son chemistry will prove even more important here. But Becker is more of a people person, as he would need to be in running a business, and he has a few soft spots beneath his tough hide.

We see one of those when he gives Fielding, a former tailor who has destroyed himself with drink, yet one more chance to come back on the job and straighten himself out. Becker also shows strength and courage defusing a heated confrontation between Vietnam War vet Youngblood and the gossipy Turnbo, who has meddled in the younger driver’s domestic affairs, frustrated at not stealing his girlfriend Rena.

There’s a fascinating range of personalities and back stories among the core quintet of drivers plus the boss’s son. Baring their souls – and their motives – everybody seems to get a monologue. Nor do Hayes and lighting designer Tony Wright veil the kinship between these monologues and long, lyrical jazz solos. Hayes usually directs her actors to blow their solos straight into the Duke Energy Theater audience, while Wright intensifies the light where they deliver.

During the passionate showdown between Youngblood and Rena, where both have been right and wrong, each of the combatants has a heartfelt monologue. Yet Wilson had even more pure audacity in a casual scene where the often-comical Fielding meets the tightly-wound Booster. The playwright brashly showcases his virtuosity by unleashing two consecutive monologues, one by the rueful Fielding recalling his better days when he tailored suits for Billy Eckstein and Count Basie, followed by Booster’s recollection of his first hard lesson in life when, as a child, he had a vivid dream about riding a red bicycle.

With so many monologues so evenly distributed, you need a cast that’s strong, deep and – when Wilson digresses – engaging. Hayes and producer Rory D. Sheriff have definitely produced with this ensemble. Though he isn’t given free enough rein in the opening scene as Fielding (we should be sure that the $4 he borrows from Doub will go toward refilling his whisky flask), Gerard Hazleton shoulders enough of the drunkard’s comedy without letting us lose our warm feelings toward him.

There’s a little more comedy squeezed from the gossipy Turnbo by Tim Bradley, probably because his sleaziness and nosiness are so outrageous, but he also forces us to take him seriously when he goes ballistic on Youngblood. More on the periphery, James Lee Walker II gives the local numbers runner, Shealy, a dandified flair though we still empathize with his romantic difficulties. On the other end of the cunning spectrum, Danius Jones makes Philmore a singularly quirky and clueless passenger, attaining full dopiness only when he returns in his bellhop uniform.

Partly because they subtly echo the central father-son relationship, Doub and Youngblood are closer to the heart of Wilson’s drama than the men who garnish it with comedy or the colorful aspects of city life. Both of them are war vets, but Youngblood – if not as senseless as Turnbo makes him out to be – has been slightly warped by his Vietnam experience. Doub, traumatized and shaken to his core in the Korean War, has retained a stone-cold outlook beneath his cheery, avuncular demeanor.

With Keith Logan delivering Doub’s Korea monologue, it becomes the warmest moment of the evening, transcending its payload of advice for Youngblood. In its tacit acknowledgement of Youngblood’s essential goodness – and his confidence in Youngblood’s ability to benefit from sound advice – he’s a perfect model of the parenting skills that Becker lacks. Ironically, there are times when Logan’s acting is similarly exemplary for Jonathan Caldwell. While Caldwell brilliantly projects Youngblood’s immaturity and confusion, he could use a tip or two on either quickening his cue pickup or timing his delayed reactions.

Caldwell’s occasional awkwardness may slightly mar Youngblood’s scenes with Doub and Turnbo, but it meshes very well with Juanita Green in the confrontations with Rena. Hayes decrees a more conciliatory rapport between the lovers when we last see them than you might find in other productions, but Green keeps this becalmed closure from becoming saccharine.

Although Becker isn’t quite the perfect boss, he deals empathetically with his drivers, so there needs to be a powerful reason why he is so cold and cruel toward his son. John W. Price provides it indelibly in the most electrifying monologue of the night. The fire and thunder from Price as he’s excoriating Booster are unlike anything I’ve seen or heard from him before, fueled by white-hot fury and pain.

It’s an earthquake, and you can see Jermaine Gamble as Booster trembling amid the seismic shock. We get the idea from Gamble that Becker’s boy has grown up, hardened by prison, a fully formed yet scarred individual. Booster does fire back at his dad, but Gamble acutely calibrates the restraint and the hope that are wrapped into his resentments, almost like he’s still an adolescent in his father’s presence. It’s simply respect – all the more moving for its futility.

Within the space of two weeks, we’ve heard from two playwrights, Jeff Talbott in The Submission and August Wilson in Jitney, who have ignited their peak moments with the N-word. This one is far more unexpected – and shattering.