Playwright Nathan Alan Davis sets his three plays over 70 years in the woods of southern Illinois. Family members are fairly reclusive, bound to their habitat both alive and dead. Without influence of outside community, each era’s group is self-contained; relationships dense. We begin in the present, then witness selected characters connect as their younger selves. Family is preeminent. It belongs to the house and woods as the house and woods belong to it.
Jessica Frances Dukes (Gail) and Ngozi Anyanwu (Joy)
I took all that nothin you gave me. And I built a house. And it’s still standin. It’s standin. And I dare you to knock it down. Knock it down and watch what I do. Knock it down and watch me build it again. And again. And again. And again.(Great Grandma Early)
The hand built home isn’t big enough for current inhabitants. Widowed Gail (Jessica Francis Dukes –whose speech is often difficult to understand) is head of household. Her single daughter, Joy (Ngozi Anyanwu), tries to keep 17 year-old son, Haha (J.J. Wynder) a sweet boy. In fact, his naiveté is so extreme, Haha seems to be on the curve. Joy would like to work – they have a truck; town is accessible – but Gail doesn’t want her out there. Haha reads when not docilely doing chores.
Michael Hill (Walking Man) and Nicole Ari Parker (Early)
Great Grandma Early (Nicole Ari Parker) hates her daughter-in-law, Gail, and picks at her constantly. At night, the family is visited by Gail’s dead husband, Walking Man (Jon Mitchell Hill), who foretells her death. Earth to earth, ashes to ashes…they have no fear of passing. Everyone takes his manifestation for granted, some converse, then go back to sleep The piece is full of magical realism.
Bathroom facilities are outside. Wash is done in a lake or tub, clothes hung on a line. There’s electricity. Gail sleeps in the only bedroom. She’s offered Great Grandmother the bed, but the old woman prefers martyrdom. Joy sleeps on the couch; Haha on the floor. A single bookshelf offers reading matter. Town is for supplies. What keeps them all there?
Early is preoccupied with Haha’s continuing the family line. Gloria and Joy protest he’s too young. One night Walking Man hands him some cash and sends the boy to a neighboring town “to find a woman friend.” (Ghosts in this story are dapper in white street apparel and conveniently have money.) This might as easily imply a prostitute as soda and burgers. Lo and behold, despite abruptly leaving in his pajamas, Haha returns with Symphony (Mallori Taylor Johnson), a young woman astonishingly on his same wave length. There’s hope. The chapter establishes characters.
Daniel J. Watts (Crazy Eddie) and Lance Coadie Williams (Dax)
In play II, middle-aged Early is raising her son, Walking Man, with his stepfather Crazy Eddie (Daniel J. Watts). In his twenties, the young man has no birth certificate, driver’s license, or Social Security number. He’s prone to setting out on foot taking months or years to explore as far as Alaska and doesn’t discover what he’s subconsciously looking for until late in the chapter. Crazy Eddie, helps as best he can.
The family is being visited by Uncle Dax (Lance Coadie Williams), a sensitive, good, gay man on his way to Paris with dreams. “Jimmy Baldwin knows how to go to Paris. Jimmy goes across the pond with a pen in one hand, and a cigarette in the other. Talking shit to everybody.” Realizing he’ll likely never be back, Dax wants to leave his kin something they need. In the wood, he meets Clydette (Lizan Mitchell) and Reginald (Jerome Breston Bates), an elderly couple who facilitate this with magic. Not counting on the likelihood of what they say, Dax’s face is priceless when instructions pan out. Meanwhile, Walking Man prepares to leave again. Just as he finishes packing his knapsack, however, young Gail wanders in. Kismet. This play is more cohesive and appealing than the first.
Jon Michael Hill (Walking Man) and Jessica Frances Dukes (Gail)
Chapter III, takes us back further to a pregnant Early who miraculously survived winter in the woods alone with her baby, Walking Man. Her relationship to nature seems like a folk tale. Crazy Eddie burns his bridges and comes looking for her. My baby’s fingers was getting cold. And I couldn’t keep ‘em warm. And I thought, Where am I gonna go? Can’t go back home. This my home now…This the place that gave me a bed of leaves to sleep on when I needed just a bit of softness...This the place my little walking-man was born. This the earth that know my blood And my pain.
Wild, dirty, hungry and mistrustful, she sends him packing, but the truck stalls and goes dead. Slowly they connect. To my mind, this is the most rewarding of the three episodes. Writing is wonderfully economic; chemistry and timing exquisite. Hill is infinitely deferential. Parker alternately moves like an apparition and an animal.
Nicole Ari Parker (Early) and Daniel J. Watts (Crazy Eddie)
The company is excellent, with Jon Mitchell Hill and Nicole Ari Parker standouts. At three hours, however, Refuge could successfully be fifteen minutes shorter. Pay attention or untangling relationships becomes a compounding issue.
Nathan Alan Davis has written an imaginative piece in the manner of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. One rarely sees that onstage. It’s compelling and entertaining.
Director Patricia McGregor falls in step with script density, which is to say part one is crammed with activity in close proximity, while two and three let in air and are more clearly defined. The stage is well used. Crazy Eddie’s impaired movement is painfully believable. Young Early’s mystical understanding with the woods, like spirits encountered, emerges organically. The relationship in III is beautifully manifest.
Emilio Sosa (costumes) outfits players as if characters arrived in their own clothes. Earon Nealey’s hair and wig design works in successful lock step.
Music and vocal soundscapes by Imani Uzuri subliminally add atmosphere. Furniture aside, I find the set (Arnulfo Maldonado) too made-in-the-garage looking.
Photos by Joan Marcus
Roundabout Theatre Company
In Association with New York Theatre Workshop presents
The Refuge Plays by Nathan Alan Davis
Directed by Patricia McGregor
Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre
Laura Pels Theatre
111 West 46th Street
The post The Refuge Plays – A Family Cradled by Magical Realism appeared first on Woman Around Town.
