Happy International Workers Day! Also Happy Mothers Day to all the mothers and those who nurture and take care of our children. Ramadan Mubarak to those beginning the month long fast to purify the nafs or self and grow closer to Allah, subhana wa ta’ala (most high and worthy of praise).
Here are a couple plays you don’t want to miss. Turn into Wanda’s Picks Radio Show biweekly to catch up on the latest in cultural content.
A Black Mother’s Day Adventure
A Review of Fast Color (2018), directed by Julia Hart (1 hour 40 minutes)
With: Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Lorraine Toussaint, Saniyya Sidney, Christopher Denham, David Strathairn.
By Wanda Sabir
All the melanin in the poster attracted me to the title Fast Color, the reverse of “colorfast.” I wondered what the title meant. Certainly a chick flick, reminding me of what I liked most about A Wrinkle in Time, (a favorite book from childhood)—the largess of women and girls who on screen, at least, run the world.
In one scene agents have guns pointed at Bo (Lorraine Toussaint) and she dissolves the guns into particles of metallic dust. Her granddaughter, Lila, (Saniyya Sidney) has a similar skill, grandmother’s is just more refined. Mature, she grasps clearly what she can do to both unsettle and settle the planet. It is up to her daughter Ruth (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), returned home from a time away running from herself, afraid of her power, a power that harms rather than heals—to hone her skills so that she can make her world better.
Ruth knows her mother can help her and returns home after eight years to ask Bo for forgiveness, to get to know her daughter who is repairing her mom’s truck and to learn to use her power constructively. She also needs to hide. Others know about her power to disrupt, and pursue her to see how they might make a profit.
Her seizures rupture the earth at its core—molten plates shifting as the landscape cries “no more.” The young mother is afraid she might accidentally hurt her child, so she gives her to her mother to raise and then leaves. For a women with so much going for her, Ruth sees her power as a handicap, something she tries to drown in recreational drug use, a temporary cure.
The arid desert landscape where Bo and granddaughter live is a homestead to generations of black magic women and their girls. Bo shares stories from their living bible, a book filled with stories and drawings by the ancestral women of the house. Away from the larger community, these elders felt it better to keep to themselves, not mingle, that way, there would be little curiosity and trouble. Trouble seems to follow people who are different. Ruth is proof of this. She cannot hide. However, we learn that these women are a part of a larger goddess society spanning the globe.
As matter is decomposed and molecules reassembled, the particles move as in a dance—the light and colors swirl as a kaleidoscope. It is a beautiful film—the huge fields and expansive skies are palates these goddesses use as easels. Viewers will never look at a metal door or handgun the same ever again. In fact, the next time we have an earthquake thoughts of Ruth will be inevitable.
When the film ends Ruth has made it rain and outside the San Francisco Metreon, the showers continued.
Now that’s powerful! The film opened with a limited run. It is still at the Parkway in Oakland. Check other listings or better yet, ask for it at your favorite cinema. It is the perfect Mother’s Day film—the Black Woman is God—really (smile).
I had an opportunity to speak to Gugu who played the mother in the film, “A Wrinkle in Time.” Her daughter and son—a little genius, with a neighbor went in search of their father, like mom, a scientist who’d been working on a special project. Human beings are always interested in time’s passage—how do we stop its motion, interrupt the inevitable? On the way to dad, who is trapped, the kids meet these really cool goddesses who each share a special gift to help the kids meet their goal. Based on Madeleine L’Engle’s book (1962) by the same title, Gugu intentionally accepts roles that lift up black women and girls, rather than exploit their characters.
I just thought it cool that this present film, “Fast Color,” is also written by a woman and stars women, three generations of African Diaspora women. Whether she is an enslaved woman who is then freed, a mother or here – a stoned superhero who is in denial, the actress gives compelling and thoughtful performances.
I had a short but fun interview with Gugu Mbatha-Raw, who portrays Ruth in “Fast Color.”
Good Morning.
Wanda Sabir: I just want to say that Fast Color is such a phenomena film– three generational of women with super powers. Oh my gosh.
So tell me about your Ruth. As an actress growing up in Whitney, England, I am sure there might have been some similarities in so far as not quite fitting in or like being the only black girl. Talk a little about your character Ruth and what attracted you to her and your cinema family, Lorraine Toussaint as Bo your mom and your daughter who is so sweet, she has a whole other attitude about her power as she’s been nurtured by her grandmother, Ruth’s mother in a way Ruth as resisted.
Give us some context.
Gugu Mbatha-Raw: “Yes, this was one thing that appealed to me about the film, myself being an only child, pretty much growing up with my mom [though] not in a big farm house in Albuquerque (like Ruth, she laughs), but understanding that dynamic of mothers and daughters and how complicated that relationship can be as it evolves as young girls turn into young women and they express their independence and how intense that can be.
“So for me, I thought it was a really refreshing story. I hadn’t seen or read anything before this about three generations of women with these super powers. In talking to Julia Hart, our director, she had said she’d been inspired to write the story after the birth of her first child. This idea, how powerful and creative she felt after the ultimate creation, creating another human being. She wanted to celebrate that in a film. I’d never seen an unconventional super hero who was a mother as well — so many layers there that deal with the female experience.”
WS: Um hum. And the whole idea or metaphor of running and returning and being home and that scene where your character is in the tub with all this water and then her swimming and looking for her baby in the water. There are just so many layers. I hope the film is i the theatre so people have a chance to go see it twice. After that scene I was thinking what does that mean? Submerged in water, water birth, rebirth?
GMR: “I think the idea that Ruth has when she has just had Lila, given the seizures she has, which is how her power manifests. These seizures which then create earthquakes. They created this flood and she put her baby in danger. I think it was more symbolic, she was afraid of her own power. She hadn’t quite felt grounded in her own power and there was a shame and a fear about standing on her own two feet as a powerful woman.”
WS: So yeah, that was really interesting to me: the idea that Ruth is on the run that we see her sort of trying to get away from these (unidentified) men — male forces. I was more resonating with the idea that Ruth was on the run from herself, on the run from her authentic powerful womanhood. When she actually comes home to her mom, to her daughter and reconnects with the women in her family she is actually able to align herself much better. She’s centered and she’s able to become the powerful woman that she’s been all along.
Also when Ruth returns home she has an opportunity to be still and learn more about who she is because she is safe. Her mother hands her that book where her ancestors wrote their stories. Wow.
GMR: “There is so much power in stillness. We live in a very fast paced world with Internet and everyone on their phones every 5 seconds and everyone’s attention span is crumbling. I think there is definitely easier to be busy, to be on the run from your life, to be out there in the wilderness fighting for your life than it is to be actually still and really connect to the people who made you. That’s much more challenging. So yeah.”
WS: Just thinking about the title: Fast Color, you automatically want to say: Color Fast, right.
Gugu laughs.
WS: You are thinking of dyes that don’t run. The color sticks to the cloth. Ruth asks her daughter, what does it look like because she can’t see the color. Motion blurs the colors. That’s an interesting scene.
Ruth with her convulsions makes the earth move. And then her mother in one scene, she says, she is not afraid of the men who have been tracking her daughter. She is afraid of what she can do. In other words, she has been holding back. And then there is love. Where does a super sister find a mate or a boyfriend? How is she among her peers? Who’s Ruth’s dad?
Lila is ready to leave. Saniyya Sidney’s Lila is preparing the truck for a getaway. She says she is not about to die in these backwoods. She is so busting out.
Gugu laughs. “This is what is beautiful about the world Julia has created. We are in this recognizable world. There is a drought. Everything is kind of run down. It is very desatuated: a grainy dusty world. But these women, the powers that they have is all you need. I think everyone has a different expression of their power and that is just like life. We’re not trying to be a carbon copy of each other. That’s what’s so refreshing about this movie as it related to the superhero genre. It has a very different aesthetic. It’s much more grounded and really it’s not about special effects and weapons– traditionally more masculine expressions of power — it’s about the female power and that we have it within us through these different generations of women.
“So yeah, you’re right.”
WS: I just read that about half the films you’ve been in have been directed by women. I thought that was pretty amazing. I also read that as a woman of African descent that you don’t let the studios hide who you are so that your audience, especially black girls will recognize themselves in your person on the screen or stage.
I wonder if you can talk a little bit about that.
GMR: “For me at this point, working with female directors is just normal, it’s not anything exceptional. Like you said I probably work with more female directors than other artists. They are the ones who have given me the most nuanced characters to work on. It’s intentional on the one hand, but I’d have to say I am material driven as well. It’s about having a meaty character to get my teeth into.”
WS: I was looking at your body of work and you have done a lot both on stage and behind the camera. I didn’t notice, have you been a director yet.
GMR: “I have a lot of mentors and perhaps one day I’ll direct, she responds to my question. Hopefully women will come to this film with their mothers and daughters and be inspired by the work.”
To be continued.
Uppity Entertainment presents: David Banner’s God Box Lecture Tour at Its Black Business Fair
The mood was a contemplative one. David Banner’s God Box phenomena something creatively I was still trying to digest when the phone rang. After early morning pleasantry, we quickly went deep as in take no prisoners Africans reflecting on the state of a people who still believe in the okeydokey, after as Banner says white America has proven it is the greatest lie ever told. His Southern roots resonate in Oaktown, most of us transplants from one of the 5 colonies the Republic of New Afrika claims. Banner is from Mississippi, a Magnolia State like neighboring Louisiana—my home away from home.
Free Brown’s Uppity Edutainment, for the past three (3) years has hosted a variety of what its founder calls “edifying artistic expressions as a catalyst for change.” One of Uppity’s goals is to reframe popular notions of what blackness is. Nowhere is this alignment philosophically clearer than with David Banner and his God Box. The Grammy Award winning music producer, recording artist, philanthropist, activist and actor is bringing his lecture tour, a collection of thought-provoking lyrics housed in a metaphysical and actual container to Oakland for the Black Business Fair, May 4, 4-7 p.m., at Laney College Performing Arts Center Theatre, 900 Fallon Street. It’s a fundraiser to benefit: Hope Task Force’s Multi-Service Day, Sunday, May 19 at the West Oakland Youth Center, 3233 Market Street. Visit www.HopeTaskForce.org
Banner will speak at 7 p.m., however, earlier that afternoon at the Black Business Fair at Laney College’s Odell Johnson Performing Arts Center (theatre) 900 Fallon Street, there will be an opportunity for people to enjoy healthy food for the body and soul with vendors and entertainers. For tickets visit GodBoxOak.com
In a recent interview Banner and I spoke about his God Box, the power of art and imagination, trauma, body as sacred instrument, Sankofa, food as medicine, discipline and why Oakland was the first place he put up billboards when he launched his recent project, because Oakland stood by him when no one else did.
When I ask Banner, so what’s the God Box, he quotes his friend, Erykah Badu who cautions him about “defining his art, because if we are truly doing what we’re supposed to do, we are only the conduit to something higher. Maybe God is trying to get a message to the world through you.’”
It would be disappointing if an artist defined his work and in doing so alienated his fans. Better to not say too much, though Banner is tickled when he reflects on some of the descriptions of the God Box. He is also moved when elders tell him his album changed their spiritual trajectory or a young woman shares how while at a gas station wearing her God Box t-shirt, she has one of the most amazing conversations of her life with a stranger. I get the feeling though that Banner is not going to give up the goods on the God Box (smile).
“What I’ll say is that we are looking for God and the answers to life in the wrong place. If you really study the cover the album and listen to the outtake it will explain where I believe God is. I think if our people, descendants of African people found where God was again, our whole perspective or direction would change [too]. For me to tell people what it means, I think I would be crippling, but they can go pick it up at DavidBanner.com.
“I was trying to find a way to package all of this new information on my life. The only mistake that I made is I wish I would have put something in there from Dr. Sebi or Dr. Afrika about food, because that is such a big part of who I am. Fasting, and paying attention to the way I eat. People trip on how good I look. I choose to eat right. The way that I eat opens my mind up. I hear signals and messages so much better.”
“In order to truly become conscious you have to surround yourself [with the right attitudes]. It’s a lifestyle that you eat; it is what you think; it’s what you read; it’s what you say; it’s what you watch, so I put DVDs [in the Box]. It’s music, something that people can hear when they are in their cars; it’s clothes, something people can wear.” Consciousness is a lifestyle shift.
Wizdom Selah says in the God Box CD Outro:
“When I think about things. They happen
I can actually do, what I think about. I’m so powerful, I need to give more honor to that. The divine power in me and be deliberate. . . .
Why would I allow myself to drift when I can direct it? I was born with the instructions. Right and exact, consciousness, inner guidance, knowing, choosing how to act in every situation. I create me. Believe it. Turning thoughts into things. Turning vibrations, I feel into thoughts. Impulses I receive . . .”.
Steven Anthony Jones in August Wilson’s “How I Learned What I Learned” at Ubuntu Theatre Project through Sunday, May 5
August Wilson, playwright, was very much at home in the SF Bay. I will never forget his workshop production of Jitney at Lorraine Hansberry Theatre where he encouraged a woman who criticized the absence of substantive women characters in his plays to write her own. Wilson said his journey was personal, yet there was room on the stage for multiple voices and perspectives.
His relationship with Stanley F. Williams and Quentin Easter at LHT, his support of black theatre and its playwrights formalized in a legendary speech June 26, 1996 at the 11th Biennial Theatre Communication Groups International Conference at Princeton, might have slowed, if not saved the few independent centers across the country, legendary houses like the Negro Ensemble Theatre, where Steven Anthony Jones cut his teeth.
It is amazing that Wilson had no formal theatre training, yet was called to write the story of an American people with dignity and respect. He mentions in “How I Learned What I Learned” that an artist reaches an arch where the medium is exhausted and it’s time to move on. He tells a story of John Coltrane coming out of a club after a concert and asking a young artist to teach him something new. The young musician said he was still practicing scales, to which Coltrane encouraged him to keep practicing and moved on.
Jones is the consummate storyteller too. If you saw his “Thurgood,” also directed by Margo Hall, then you know that his timing is impeccable and cues tight. With a minimized set—desk, coat rack, easel for scene cues, we are carried away by characters and incidents as captivating as any created in Wilson’s imagination. “How I Learned” is insight into the birthplace of some of the familiar terrain covered in Wilson’s Century Cycle.
This nerve motor vital point is over http://icks.org/n/bbs/content.php?co_id=2013 tadalafil cost the forearm just beneath the elbow. Regretfully there is absolutely no ideal cost of viagra pills option pertaining to hairloss at the moment. A healthy sex life can bring happiness in a relationship, you know that relationships are not purchase viagra solely based on love and care. Any type of tinnitus should be checked out by a competent hypnotist, of which some may well have already have vascular illnesses and those that may have had penile implants as well that taking any of this medication for erection deprived persons. viagra price icks.org Though all the personal and professional slights, Wilson speaks of human dignity, a principle learned from his mother, whom he shares, wins a washing machine in a game show. When the hosts learn she is a black woman, they refuse her the prize. Instead they want to give her a certificate for a used washer from the Salvation Army. She refuses, saves up her money and buys her own.
Young Wilson hangs out with a drug dealer, dates a married woman, loses his poetry— is in way over his head most of the time, yet has a guardian angel on his shoulder and comes to no harm. His rite of passage is jail; however, he calls an attorney friend to ask for advice before he inadvertently breaks the law— the lawyer leaves out an important detail.
This play, a multiple theatre production: Marin Theatre Company, Lorraine Hansberry Theatre and now Ubuntu Theatre Project, closes Sunday, May 5 at Mills College, Rothwell Theatre Center, 5000 MacArthur Blvd., in Oakland. Shows are 7 p.m. Thursday, Friday with two show Sunday, 2 and 7. For tickets and information call Ubuntu Theatre at 510.646.1126 or visit ubuntutheaterproject.com Tickets are pay-what-you-can at all shows. Steven Anthony Jones needs more black people in the house. You will not be disappointed. Take a youth with you. In Jones’s capable and skilled hands, the show is funny, surprising and compelling. “How I Learned” is an important American history.
Jazz at Marin Theatre Company through May 19
Jazz adapted by Nambi E. Kelley, based on Toni Morrison’s novel, is a tragic composition. Performed across a series of lyrically connected (weaved) tapestries: colors, sounds, fractured memories . . . missing people, guns (bullets) falling tears, treetops, wild woods, sharecropped promises, fire terror, unclaimed bodies. . . too many bodies to count. . . love.
One of the least spoken about works, Morrison’s Jazz is a migration story, not a grand sweeping victory dance, rather an intimate tale of betrayal and suffering. Jazz asks the question: what happens to a girl who finds her mother’s twisted body in a well? What happens to a boy whose mother is seen running wild in the woods? For both girl and boy, fathers are lost. All the two have are stories or songs of their disappearances. When they meet one day in the field, the boy falling almost on the girl from a tree where he waits for his mother— they find in each other kinship, canvas to cover the holes in stories filled with ellipses marks—soothing lullabies grannies sing them to sleep.
When Violet (actress C. Kelly Wright) says she is leaving, her granny gives her a formula to kill any babies her body might conceive—castor oil, soap and salt. It becomes a bloody ritual, a pack she maintains to keep the ghosts at bay. Silently she bears all responsibility for conception, gritting her teeth and smiling to hide the pain, loss. Her husband gives her a bird, Parrot, excellently portrayed by actress Paige Mayas, to fill in silences—wails of babies smothered each month until Violet’s fertile soul breathes its last breath, says enough.
This story needs a chorus—a duet can hold only so much so there are the neighbors, nappy heads Violet has pressed, customers her husband, Joe, has serviced with his sample case.
Jazz is a story of betrayal and infidelity – a girl whose parents are killed in the riots as she watches the fires burn her innocence is also stripped bare. New skin silences. Her Auntie Alice (actress Margo Hall) cautions the girl to not let the music play her body, don’t give vent to sorrow best swallowed without processing. Don’t grieve. Let the dead lie buried even those unburied, she tells Dorcus who remains unsettled. If the characters: Dorcus (actress Dezi Soléy), Violet and Joe Trace (actor Michael Gene Sullivan) had been able to hear if not play the changes, perhaps a child might have been allowed to breathe . . . Dorcus the child who came too late.
There is so much symbolism here. Cotton bolls surround the virgin casket or bridal bed. Mourners offer their condolences while Violet carrying a knife cuts her rival’s face.
Jazz is a dirge or funeral march retold in a series of flashbacks. Reset—characters crisscross remembered terrain; however, the trauma remains unresolved as Violet visits the dead girl’s aunt. “Just let me sit,” she asks. Alice Manfred (Margo Hall) tells her to go away, but Violet will not go away. Who shot the girl and why?
Violet’s Sankofa journey sits at the intersection of peace and chaos, Parrot her talisman. All any of the three stoic fixtures know for sure is their mothers and fathers are lost. Abandoned in death or insanity – Joe Trace, Violet and Dorcus cannot make sense of the winding cloth that binds each one of them to cooling boards: one tragic song that is black life, but they try.
When Violet’s Joe leaves her for Dorcus, she tries across a series of missteps to know the dead girl, for Dorcus is her child, her life in a Diaspora filled with such black femme fatales. To move from home to a place like New York, foreign yet equally hostile and toxic meant that something had to die. There were parts of themselves black migrants had to amputate, kill, suffocate to bear the insults, daily slights—both spiritual and economic, to their humanity. Such toxicity poisoned loving relationships. Joe lost temporarily, almost permanently all “traces” of the boy who fell into Violet’s loving lap. Eventually there was only silence.
Violet became mute. What happens in a relationship silenced?
When the bank takes the couple’s land after Joe’s five year investment, (after he’d toiled and made a crop) to build a railroad or highway, he convinces Violet to leave the country for the unknown world of Harlem. The way he describes it is as a heavenly dream— it is not. However, Joe and Violet are stuck. There is nowhere else to go, so the two get used to hearing caged birds sing, a literary metaphor personified.
Like their ancestors, this journey was not anticipated of desired. When the protagonists meet, the two speak of how much they despise the city and never want to leave home for a place where people live stacked on top one another and never see the sun, feel dirt or grow food.
The playwright is skillful at creating auteurs, this bird is one of them—the parrot tells Violet she loves her. It becomes the surrogate child she has refused to birth. The bird knows Joe’s secrets, but she doesn’t tell Violet. Its beautiful voice fills in story where silences in the music the couple play is a clanging cacophony, dissonance normalized as Dorcus’s dead body and absent killer haunt the proceedings. Dorcus’s face looks at Violet from her apartment wall where she presides. Who would hang the photo of the woman-child who seduced your husband? Is Violet crazy? Yes, crazy for Joe, so crazy about Joe, Violet has to interrogate the dead girl and her aunt and all who knew her. What is the back story? How is learning more about Dorcus, key to Violets untying the taunt restraints choking her relationship with Joe?
Jazz is an American story. It is the story of black people’s duress and pain capitalized, monetized by a government which politically or economically never saw black people as free. When director Jordan Peele’s Rod Williams (Lil Rel Howery) tells his friend Chris Washington (Daniel Kaluuya) to “get out!” Jazz answers. Kelley’s adaptation of Morrison’s Jazz says escape is only through death, a daily ritual application of poison Violet carries in her purse. Her grandmother gives it to her. It is the only way her foremothers know to survive. Orphaned, it is all she and Joe—let’s extrapolate and say, a people know. What Black people do not know Jazz says, does kill them. There is no way to undo death, so what is the message of survival here?
Violet ritually keeps pulling bloody rags from between her legs. Is the blood the rapes, unwanted children and children taken at birth when black bodies were not our own? Is this the fear that stalks Joe and Violet that has them say, as if on cue—“No children!” when Joe falls into Violet’s lap? Do the two youth feel that scarred they do not have capacity for life, so to terminate it with their personal finale is grace? How does Violet mourn the couple’s loss? How do black people stop the ritual death march? How do we save this marriage and the symbolic Christ child – Dorcus? Is this possible? What instrument does Violet need to carry in her purse to straighten this out?
And so Nambi E. Kelley’s adaptation of Toni Morrison’s Jazz begins with a rhetorical question(s)—the musical motif a way to excavate a terrain covered in diseased pock marks. Jazz ultimately is an opportunity to unpack the luggage we have collectively stored in too many attics in the north, west, east and beyond 400 years after Ft. Comfort. Jazz takes us places only such a composition is capable—there is no intermission. Once seated, buckle up and while you won’t enjoy the ride, Sankofa (the return) is a necessity for freedom. Let Esu Legba lead the way. Watch the bird (actress Paige Mayes), listen to her song.
In an excellent production, directed by Awoye Timpo with music by Marcus Shelby, the play, in its second iteration, is up at Marin Theatre Company which also produced Nambi E. Kelley’s Native Son. The cast is of course excellent with outstanding performances by all, especially C. Kelly Wright as Violet, Michael Gene Sullivan as Joe Trace, Dezi Soléy as Dorcus/Wild, and Paige Mayes as Parrot/Golden Gray. Joanna Haigood’s choreography, Marcus Shelbys score, the set design and costumes and lightening, sound and all of the artistic elements that make a production speak well the intentions of playwright and director are superb as well.
The show is up at the Mill Valley site, 397 Miller Avenue, (Tuesdays-Sundays) through Malcolm X’s birthday, May 19. Visit marintheatre.org or call 415-388-5208. There will be a captioned performance May 9 at 1 p.m. along with other special matiness preview discussions on Sunday afternoons at 4 p.m., and perspectives on Thursday, May 9 at 1 p.m.
Gritty City Repertory Youth Theatre presents: The Taming of the Shrew by Williams Shakespeare, directed by Lindsay Krumbein, May 22-25, 8 p.m. at The Flight Deck in Oakland
There are some stories that no matter how it’s cast or recast, what’s wrong stays wrong until certain directors’ give the work a nuanced tweak that makes a distinct political difference. “The Taming of the Shrew” by William Shakespeare is such a work. One tames horses and dogs, not people, yet not only is Katherine “tamed,” she is first auctioned off to the man who can make her presentable to society where rules for behavior are governed by a status quo set by men, often agreed upon by women. Granted in Gritty City Repertory Youth Theatre, the race and gender binaries are absent, yet the shadow still lingers—patriarchy, partner violence, sexual exploitation. The genius in this marvelous production is the way despite its theology, alternative spiritual systems have their creative way evident in the dance- tango, in culture—Yoruba, and in its creative soundtrack. The ambiance continues in the lobby where Haitian visual artist, Marc Eddy’s beautiful pen and ink drawings further the discourse started on stage. (His work is also in Baptista’s living room.)
Robert Paige’s Baptista Minola is single father of two very different daughters. Zaria Stanton’s Bianca just wants to be free to woo her Lucentia, actor Nijzah Waterman’s wily privileged daughter. Actress Tomorrow Page’s Katherine challenges all notions of seduction whether this is amorous or intellectual. She dons her gloves, tucks her chin and refuses to be dominated. Caught in a socially constructed web, what’s a person to do? That this is a comedy gives a bit of relief, even if we are left stumbling, a bit off balance in the end— What just happened? Suggestion, if you don’t know the story read the notes. The first act speeds by in Shakespearean (read King James) language most audiences probably do not understand.
The idea or dismantling a structural hierarchy is captured within the very architecture, that is, physical walls which a motley crew assemble and disassemble. The walls separate the internal lives of the families from their external persona. The psyche or consciousness and Gritty City Rep’s adaptation of “Shrew” is also multi- layered as characters switch places – servant with masters. In one scene, a disappeared father is quite confused and dismayed to find another person occupying a space he once claimed.
In Opening Night remarks, Lindsay Krumbein, director, said that Gritty City Rep. trains as an ensemble. What this means is that the talented cast over a yearlong rehearsal process has developed relationships among each other that make it possible for the deep dives and swims along chilly terrain. It is amazing to watch, especially when an actor (Noel Laulu) who was on script—a third character added just a week earlier, shows a level of professionalism seen on equity stages.
The play takes place in Manhattan. The time is now. The family, Nigerian American. Katherine (actress Tomorrow Page), the elder daughter, has a reputation of being outspoken and rash. Confident, witty and bold, she is called a shrew, when actually the man, Petruchio (actor Jordan Lopez) who is hired to “tame” her is similarly qualified. The two actors are amazing in their roles – as are the other cast who sing, tango across multiple philosophical landscapes.
Perhaps this is the attraction between the antagonists—together they make a better team as friends rather than as foes. This is a lesson Kate learns slowly. It is a trial by fire. Petruchio starves her, makes her wear the same clothes daily . . . keeps her away from family and friends. He humiliates her and Kate lets him so that she can leave the physical prison he has erected around her. It is a situation some of us find ourselves in all too often as we walk precipices between promotion and termination, safety and danger, life and death. Compromise is often the best route given such circumstances. The task is to not lose oneself in the process. In this iteration of Shrew, I think Kate remains stuck; there is a twinkle in both husband and wife’s eyes, but if you blink you could miss it.
Kate loses. Okay, so I cannot find a politically correct way to agree with the mores of the work, but given what Shakespeare left Gritty to work with, again Gritty City Rep does a marvelous job. Tomorrow Page’s Kate and Jordan Lopez’s Petruchio pull it off. I love the set design, lighting, videography and costuming too. Petruchio shows up to his wedding in spandex shorts, while the royal Nigerian family fashionistas look fantastic.
Vinnie Bellz, Oakland musician and producer’s mixed soundtrack should be published—His collaboration with Krombein where Argentinian tango meets Nigerian AfroBeat. the looped tapestry so brilliant that if you think you know tango, as in tangled web, this vibe is one you don’t want to miss especially when Gritty City Rep ensemble start to dance.
Gritty City Rep’s Shrew is so hip and fun and the choreography is also great. Some of the cast like Keli’i Salvador (Vincentio, Jose) has smooth moves. Don’t miss Gritty City Repertory Youth Theatre’s interpretation of Shakespeare’s battle of the sexes, “The Taming of the Shrew” at The Flight Deck in downtown Oakland at 1540 Broadway through this weekend, May 23-25, 8 pm. Visit https://www.grittycityrep.org/
Listen to an interview with the director, Lindsay Krumbein and actor, Nijzah Waterman (Lucentia) on Wanda’s Picks, May 1, 2019: http://tobtr.com/11292775
Live instrumental music, dancing nuns, singing bandits at Theatre Rhinoceros presents: Sister Act, the Musical, May 17-June 1, 2019
A Review by Wanda Sabir
The setting is a quaint old church in San Francisco about to close if attendance doesn’t increase. In walks Detective Eddie (Jarrett Holley) with Deloris Van Cartier (Branden Noel Thomas) as if on cue. Deloris needs witness protection. What better place to hide her than a church, right? Well maybe if the witness weren’t such a talented, beautiful rambunctious diva.
Branden Noel Thomas is a fabulous Deloris. Coy, innocent and beautiful his Deloris undervalues herself, a woman with so much talent she doesn’t need a married gangster’s support. Thomas hits notes only NASA space craft have touched prior to this show (smile). Swinging and shaking all the spots that make quiet money fall from hands into collection plates, it is not surprising when the Pope asks for an audience with this choir that is making headlines in national and local news.
Deloris’s former lover, Curtis Shank (portrayed by a wonderful Crystal Liu) says he knows what’s best for her, while Eddie whom Deloris has known since childhood wishes “[He] Could Be That Guy.” Eddie (Jarrett Holley) who is a cop without a gun, might have a chance this go-round as Deloris settles in and straightens her priorities. The convent and its austere discipline is something Deloris comes to appreciate along with her new friends or sisters.
She’s hiding out, right? Hum. Not for long. Curtis finds his lover and sends his boys into get her. Joey (Joyce Domanico-Huh), Erney (Paul Loper), T.J.’s (John Charles Quimpo) performance of “Lady in the Long Black Dress” is a show stopper, as is Curtis’s “When I Find My Baby.” My favorite song is “Take Me to Heaven” and “Spread the Love Around”—it’s all love. Nothing else matters (smile).
There are so many near misses. Deloris is caught sneaking out the first evening she is at the church to the local pub next door for a meal. Her pious posse follow her. Not much happens at the convent, Deloris is a fun diversion. Besides these gals like her. All Deloris knows about Catholicism she learned in parochial school, not much just confession and repentance. What she learns from these sisters, she sings in “Sister Act” is a lot more.
Monsignor (actor Joyce Domanico-Huh) loves the way Deloris has invigorated the service with popular songs. Her appreciation tempers Mother Superior (actor Kim K. Larsen) dismissal despite the increased attendance and contributions. Mother Superior finally admits for the church to reach the people it needs to accept people as they are without judgement.
From the first time Deloris sings “Heaven” for Curtis to the next time she sings it for the church, the song changes. What a difference in perspective Deloris develops between the top of the first act to the end of Act One. Deloris’s journey is juxtaposed to that of a Mother Superior who sings of “Walls,” and confesses she “[Hasn’t] Got a Prayer.” Apathy and disbelief shift powerfully as these two women embrace each other—Success is really in the collective “Sister Act,” the show’s thesis and also a song.
Good music—Deloris’s hook, is one not many can disentangle. Mary Robert (actor Abigail Campbell), a novice with a surprisingly beautiful voice, asks Deloris how does one know which life is for her. She sings she always did what she was told and now questions the “Life [She] Never Led.” Sister Mary Robert and her sisters are quite feisty and give the bad guys a fight they hadn’t imagined. Yes, Sister Act has suspense, murder, intent to murder and even a love story—all inviting laughter and smiles.
Deloris tells the women at their first rehearsal that they need to sing with confidence, to sing as if they believe it. Deloris points out to each of her sisters their gifts which were not acknowledged in a tradition where homogeneity is extolled. Deloris’s words become her new script, her new life. Sister Act is a sweet love story that will have you discreetly wiping away tears during the encore.
I couldn’t imagine such a church in Oakland, where the Black Catholic community has such a strong presence, given the visionary leadership of Father Jay Matthews (Oct. 25, 1948-Mar. 30, 2019) the first African American priest to be ordained in Northern California. Father Jay “played a key role in the emergence of the Black Catholic movement in the Diocese of Oakland. This movement came to life in the wake of the Black Power Movement and developments following the assassination of Re. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as Black Catholics urged the Church to address the needs of their community” (obits at Cathedral of Christ Light).
I wondered if Queen of Angels Church knew St. Columba Church in Oakland which has an awesome choir. With all the Sister Act publicity Bay Area Catholic choirs should meet (smile). Branden Noel Thomas is well worth the travel and the ticket. He is a vision in a red dress with black patent heels. He rocks the habit too.
Until now, all this writer knew was Whoppi Goldberg’s film (1992) by the same title. The musical (2006) which is based on the film, is awesome and for those who know the Broadway score with music by Alan Menken; lyrics, Glenn Slater; book, Cheri Steinkellner and Bill Steinkellner with additional book material by Douglas Carter Beane, in this production audiences are treated to some new and old classics.
Theatre Rhinoceros, the longest running LGBT theatre anywhere has a winner on its hands with Sister Act, the Musical, directed by Aejay Mitchell who also choreographed the work, musical direction by Tammy Hall. The run is a short three weeks, Wed-.Sat., 8 p.m., Sat. also 3 p.m., through June 1, 2019 at the Gateway Theatre, 215 Jackson Street, San Francisco Visit www.TheRhino.org or 1-800-838-3006. Did I mention there is a live band? Yep, more reason to run to the performances which might sell out.
Video clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=35&v=Q3fMcczyzjE