CurtainUp
The Internet Theater Magazine of Reviews, Features,
Annotated Listings
| |
CurtainUp The Internet Theater Magazine of Reviews, Features,
Annotated Listings |
|
A CurtainUp Los Angeles Review
Les Blancs
Staged with fire and compassion at the Rogue Machine's home at the MET Theatre, Gregg T. Daniel's production is billed as the play's Los Angeles premiere. As inconceivable as it seems that a noted work by the author of A Raisin in the Sun should take nearly 50 years to get an L.A. staging, it's quickly apparent why companies might want to avoid it. The play is angry, epic in scale, and apocryphal yet relevant in a way that Hansberry was smart enough to predict. It requires a big cast, a cultural awareness, patient audiences, and the guts to stare down a socially bleak vision. Daniel's production contains all these elements and then some. The staging area may be confined, but the play's sweep is not. Actors Desean Kevin Terry, Joel Swetow, Anne Gee Byrd, Matt Orduna and Jason McBeth inhabit their roles expertly, while percussionist Jelani Blunt and dancer Shari Gardner further establish the production's heart and soul. Hansberry set her tale in a compound of a war-torn African nation. The time, the playwright wrote, is "yesterday, today, tomorrow — but not very long after that." A glance at headlines of any racial or cultural uprisings domestically or internationally makes one realize that yesterday, today and tomorrow means right bloody now. Charlie Morris (Jason McBeth), an American journalist, arrives in an unnamed African nation to write its story and inform the world what's going on. At the mission established 40 years ago by the Reverend Nielsen, kindly doctors treat the impoverished sick and wounded while priests try to minister to their souls. Dr. Martha Hotterling (Fiona Hardingham) proclaims herself content while her fellow doctor Willy DeKoven (Joel Swetow) is starting to harden. The Reverend's wife, Madame Neilsen (Anne Gee Byrd), the doyenne of the compound, is beloved by all. She is losing her sight, but not &emdash; where African is concerned &emdash; her vision. With guns at the ready, Major Rice, an officious and iron-fisted solider (Bill Brochtrup) keeps things under control. Tensions are already mounting when the death of a tribal elder forces his son Tshembe (Desean Kevin Terry), who had left Africa for Europe and married a white woman to return for the burial. Tshembe arrives to find that his brother Abioseh (Matt Orduna) has become a priest. Their youngest brother Eric (Aric Floyd) helps out at the mission, straddling an uneasy line between the white missionaries and the black villagers, both of whom claim him. DeKoven frequently has the teen strung out on whiskey. Tshembe's arrival forces a decision: bury his father and continue a life of assimilation in Europe, or stay and lead the growing resistance. Spurring that decision is Peter (Amir Abdullah), a deceptively subservient porter. Liquor will flow, souls will be searched, and violence will inevitably erupt. As she has her characters make references to Orestes and Hamlet, Hansberry was undoubtedly aware of the classic epic structure she was establishing. Scenic designer Stephanie Kerley Schwartz has cleverly segmented the MET stage to achieve ample playing space for a larger than average Rogue Machine cast. Daniel's production can't evoke vast expanses of Africa, but we still feel like we are in a distant land.. Before he stations himself on the second level, Blunt performs a lengthy pre-curtain drumming solo that establishes the production's mood and also effectively sets our nerves on edge. As the play unfolds, the beats of distant drums play a distinct role. Characters know what those sounds mean. By and large, Hansberry has created rich, complicated characters and Daniel's cast inhabits them with intelligence and compassion. Terry brings out Tshembe's divided loyalties, presenting the character as a reluctant hero who is forced into making some awful choices. His interactions with McBeth's crusading journalist and Byrd's wise-but-divided matriarch are dramatically interesting for different reasons. The production benefits greatly from the contributions of actors like Swetow and Byrd. A miscast Brochtrup (co-artistic director of the Antaeus Theater Company) would have been more believable as the weary Doctor DeKoven. The play's most interesting character proves to be Madame Nielsen whose function in the world of Les Blancs is enigmatic. The play begins with the Reverend, Madame's husband, away from the mission that he founded. Two and half hours later, as Les Blancs motors toward its inevitably bleak climax, the Reverend has not returned, and the old woman has to face two uncomfortable truths. "No man can be more than a man," she says, talking about her husband although she could easily mean Tshembe, and "Our country needs warriors. Warriors. Now more than ever." Listening to the redoubtable Anne Gee Byrd deliver these lines is enough to knot your stomach and realize how prescient Loraine Hansberry most certainly was. Rogue Machine lets both women's voices ring out gloriously. |
Search CurtainUp in the box below PRODUCTION NOTES Les Blancs by Lorraine Hansberry Directed by Gregg T. Daniel Cast: Amir Abdullah, Bill Brochtrup, Anne Gee Byrd, Aric Floyd, Fiona Hardingham, Jason McBeth, Matt Ordina, Jonathan P. Sims, Joel Swetow, Desean Kevin Terry, Trevor Bergmann, Roxann Blackman, Jahanna Blunt, Jelani Blunt, Turner Frankosky, John Knight, Matthew Lindberg, Trenton Lucas, Rosney Mauger, Nick Moss, Tarina Pouncy, Paul Stanko, Rayven Taylor, Francoise Tiadem, Jalen Williams Set Design: Stephanie Kerley Schwartz Costume Design: Wendell C. Carmichael Lighting Design: Derrick McDaniel Original Music and Sound Design: Jeff Gardner Fight Director: Edgar Landa Choreographer: Joyce Guy Production Manager: Amanda Bierbauer Technical Director: David A. Mauer Casting: Victoria Hoffman Dialect Coach: Andrea Odinov Fuller Stage Manager: Ramon Valdez Running time: Two hours and 30 minutes, including one intermission Through July 3, 2017 at the MET Theatre, 1089 N. Oxford Ave., Los Angeles (213) www.roguemachinetheatre.com Reviewed by Evan Henerson REVIEW FEEDBACK Highlight one of the responses below and click "copy" or"CTRL+C"
Paste the highlighted text into the subject line (CTRL+ V): Feel free to add detailed comments in the body of the email. . .also the names and emails of any friends to whom you'd like us to forward a copy of this review. For a feed to reviews and features as they are posted at http://curtainupnewlinks.blogspot.com to your reader Curtainup at Facebook . . . Curtainup at Twitter Subscribe to our FREE email updates: E-mail: esommer@curtainup.com put SUBSCRIBE CURTAINUP EMAIL UPDATE in the subject line and your full name and email address in the body of the message. If you can spare a minute, tell us how you came to CurtainUp and from what part of the country. |
