Sunday, February 17, 2008
A+E, Theater, Reviews

Deep ‘Water’

Alliance offering rises above playwriting competition

BY BERT OSBORNE

Following a couple of heavy-handed missteps (2006’s “...,’ said Said” and 2007’s “False Creeds”), Tarell Alvin McCraney’s “In the Red and Brown Water”—winner of the Alliance Theatre’s fourth annual Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Competition—finally puts the program back on the promising track that started with its inaugural winner (2005’s superior “Day of the Kings”). It’s set in the “distant present” in a mythical Louisiana bayou town, and on the surface it’s a rather pedestrian drama about a young girl’s coming of age. At first, Oya (Kianné Muschett) is an aspiring track star, torn between leaving home to take a college scholarship and staying behind to care for her ailing mother. Eventually, just as routinely, she’s torn between two lovers.

McCraney’s play is steeped in Yoruban storytelling traditions, although its technique periodically borders on the pretentious. Characters recite their own stage directions and, as elsewhere in the writing, it often sounds slightly florid. (Elegba: “Elegba enters, like the moon during the day.” Or: “Elegba exits, like a three-quarter moon in the morning.”) A chorus of supporting players hovers around the periphery of scenes, occasionally keeping a beat on their water buckets or breathing in melodramatic unison. A returning soldier’s sudden musical interlude feels phony.

Nevertheless, director Tina Landau (of Chicago’s Steppenwolf fame) has rendered a striking vision of the play, even though it essentially unfolds on a bare stage and in a black box. Note how, in one indelible tableau, she lines a few of her actors against the wall in on your mark-get set-go succession. And dig how she “opens up” a scene set at a hip-hop club. Her 10-member cast is thoroughly resourceful; standouts include Andre Holland as Oya’s more humble love interest, Heather Alicia Simms as her feisty aunt and Chinai Hardy as the world-weary mother.

Whether or not it’s a prerequisite, one common bond among the Alliance’s Kendeda plays is their multicultural emphasis—“Kings” took place in Cuba, “Said” dealt with Middle Eastern issues and, like “Creeds,” “Water” presents a highly stylized slice of the African-American experience (with a much greater personal connection to its central character). All the world’s a stage, to be sure, and McCraney, Landau and company transport us to a small corner of it with an unmistakable artistry. SP

DULY NOTED:

In spots, Theatrical Outfit’s autumnal comedy “Southern Comforts” (directed by Robert Farley)—about a robust Southern Democrat widow and a sedentary Yankee Republican widower who fall in love—is every bit as precious as you’d expect, replete with cutesy sex talk and physical shtick. But a fine turn by Steve Coulter and a fantastic one from Jill Jane Clements keep the show alive. Whatever their ages (or those of their characters), he seems to be playing older (his hair looks colored, his pace overly deliberate), while she simply IS this woman (sans artifice or affectation). That the role may not be much of a stretch for her doesn’t mean she isn’t sensational – just savor how she talks about dodging the waves of life, when she’d rather be watching them from ashore. Through Feb. 23. 678-528-1500. www.theatricaloutfit.org.

Unlike those Outfit characters, Theatre in the Square’s lukewarm farce “Room Service” (directed by James Donadio), hasn’t aged well. It’s the source of a 1938 Marx Brothers movie, but Akim Tamiroff jokes aren’t what they used to be. On opening weekend, at least, the show had yet to find its groove. Even so, with Hugh Adams, Andrew Benator, Bill Murphey and Geoff Uterhardt among the theatrical madcaps and scene-stealer Don Finney as a flustered hotelier, there are minor pleasures to be enjoyed. The best bit: A round of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.” Through Feb. 24. 770-422-8369. www.theatreinthesquare.com.