The Arts in NYC Fall 2012

Now that the Thanksgiving festivities are over and I’m up and out of my food crash, it’s time to talk about this enthralling play that we saw on Wednesday evening. I was extremely excited that we were going to see this play at the Signature Theater, and I was not at all disappointed.

The plot of the play itself was, for the most part, captivating. The enjoyment that I got from seeing the play performed live as opposed to merely reading the screenplay, as we had done before hand, was on an entirely different level. The authenticity of the storyline was heightened, I feel, because we didn’t have to fill in as many blanks in our heads as we would have with the screenplay. The racial stereotypes were easier to pick up with the actors really selling their personalities. The accents and speech patterns of Boy Willie and Lymon, two Southern blacks, were noticeably different from Doaker, Bernice, and the rest. Their words were spoken at such a rapid pace that they overlapped each other. Often it was hard to undestand exactly what Boy Willie was saying. That clever decison by the director really helped to reinforce his personality- always trying to move forward, obsessed with what he can do for himself, etc. Characters like Doaker and Bernice were a little more content with life as it was, and so they did not have the same manner of speaking.

I was kind of disappointed in the minimal roles that some of the characters played, in particular, Maretha and Grace. It got to the point where sometimes I wondered whether or not they were truly necessary characters in the scope of the whole play. They didn’t really have any moments where they were the most important characters. Maretha can maybe be seen like she is an extension of Bernice, and so in that regard I can see her worth. She is what Bernice wishes she could have been in her youth. The same cannot be said for Grace in my mind. She seemed unnecessary, like she was a qualifier for Lymon’s desire for women.

One thing that really surprised me about this play was how powerful the songs were. When I was reading the screenplay on my own, I kind of expected them to be sung in a more lighthearted manner. When the actors got into it, however, there was a lot of legitimacy and power in their vocals. The characters seemed to get lost in the songs, which was evident in the lengths of the breaks that the play ended up taking for its songs. Particularly striking was Wining Boy’s performance close to the conclusion of the play. In the scenes before, he had come off as drunk, unstable, and a little hysterical. However, when he got his mind set on playing that song about Cleotha, he was a different man. After thinking about it, his lament on her passing seems bigger than just that. Rather, it appears to be both a lament on her loss as wella s the life that he wanted to have, but lost. His struggles and mistakes are so often made fun od during the course of the play. In this moment, we see him as more than just a comic relief character. He’s a worn down man who went from riches to rags. He’s beat up, tired, and lost the things that he truly held dear. The bluesy piano and incredibly bone-chilling vocals that he delivered emphasized his struggle, and it was a high point in the play for me. That’s not to say that the performance of the slavery-time song wasn’t excellent as well, but it was a less serious tune, and didn’t say as much about the individual characters.

I enjoyed this play a whole hell of a lot. It had a few plotholes and weaknesses, but on the whole it was a very strong storyline. The acting was the best part of this production & performance, in my opinion. Staging, lighting (especially the “ghostly” effects) were believable and well-designed as well. You all should’ve been there! It was a great way to start the break.

– Ben