Displaying items by tag: David Goodloe

Pegasus Theatre’s “Dontrell, Who Kissed the Sea” is a family drama with plenty of comedic overtones. Director ILesa Duncan relies on very strong performances by Maya Abram as Mom, the whirling core of the family, along with David Goodloe as a deadpan Dad, to center the show in the Jones household dynamics. These have been thrown askew by Dontrell Jones III, a 18 year old dreamer who has always followed his own direction.

Written by Nathan Alan Davis, the play gives us a dramatic shift early in the opening scenes. In a vivid dream, beautifully staged with the company of players forming a chorus, Dontrell is visited by ancestral figures, and directed to seek out the remains of his great great great grandfather, who died in transit by jumping from a slave ship—the Middle Passage from Africa. Now Dontrell is to dive to the seabed where the Chesapeake River meets the Atlantic, to find his ancestor’s remains.

On awakening, this becomes Dontrell’s mission. Never mind that his parents have other plans for him. Or that he is to enter Johns Hopkins as a freshman in the fall. Or that he cannot swim. With an innocent single mindedness he embarks on this mission, Dontrell begins keeping a tape recorded log of his quest, dictating similarly to the Star Trek captain’s log, tracking his progress.

Immersed in this electrifying dream vision, Dontrell’s family senses he is estranged. His good buddy Robby (Zay Williams) reaches out to him, but while the old bond is there, Dontrell is not there with it.

Soon he heads to the public pool and diving into the deep end, and sinks, only to be. And then rescued by the lifeguard on duty, Erika (Emma Wineman). The two bond, and she becomes his confidant and comes home to meet the family, including younger sister Danielle (Aundria TraNay).

The play then follows the dynamics of the family conflict, filled with humor, angst, anger, and love. While working from the same script as a 2018 version of “Dontrell, Who Kissed the Sea,” it is remarkable to how differently this production interprets the author’s work. The earlier version was more dreamlike, centering on Dontrell’s vision and quest. Pegasus’ production centers on the conflict between a young Black man compelled to reckon with his heritage, and his family’s goals to keep him headed to college. Both are satisfying shows, but call me a dreamer, I lean toward the First Floor Theatre interpretation, which is why I returned five years later to see this play once more.
“Dontrell Who Kissed the Sea” plays through August 18 at Chcago Dramatists theater, 798 N. Aberdeen.

I’m going to do my best to not provide any spoilers in my review of “Fairview” the 2019 Pulitzer Prize winning play by Jackie Sibblies Drury. It’s going to be hard. Definition Theatre’s production under the direction of Tyrone Phillips will certainly challenge its audience. This production starts in heightened realism, flows into surrealism, runs head on into the absurd before landing a moralistic gut punch. It would be unfair of me to describe the twist, turns and surprises. Everyone should be given a fair view of this excellent production for themselves.

Director Tyrone Phillips has staged “Fairview” as a play within a play. We are introduced to the home of The Frasier Family. It is a nice, if somewhat simple home. The type of home you may find in so many television sit-coms. It becomes obvious the Frasers are middle class African Americans once we meet high anxiety Beverly (Kandice Robins) and her hen-pecked, doting husband Dayton (David Goodloe). They are straight out of central casting, Perfect. If you closed your eyes and just listened to them, you would be hard pressed to guess their race. Yeah…those Black people.

Beverly is preparing a birthday dinner for her mother, the family matriarch, and everything must be perfect because, well, what would people think. As Beverly sits cutting carrots listening to Stevie Wonder’s “Happy Birthday” the channel on the radio changes and starts to play the traditional “Happy Birthday Song. It rattles Beverly for a minute, but the music quickly changes back, and she continues her preparation of the dinner as if nothing happened. Her sister, Jasmine (Martasia Jones) arrives with a bottle of rose wine to kick the party off. It is obvious Jasmine is a little more spirited (o.k. she’s ghetto)

than her proper sister. She’s opinionated, gossipy, loud and (well, ghetto.) We next meet Keisha, (Jada Jackson) the teenage daughter any family would want. She has the usual teenage problems but it’s clear she’s very smart and focused.

The family has the usual conversations any middle-class family would have. Beverly is hoping her lawyer brother, Tyrone makes the party. Keisha wants her Aunt Jasmine to ask her mother to allow her to take a gap year after graduation. Dayton is helping his wife as much as he can. Jasmine and Beverly have an on-going rivalry. Beverly gets more anxious as things aren’t going perfectly. When she realizes the cake has burnt she faints, chopped carrots fly everywhere. Lights down!

The lights come halfway up on stage. And for the next five to ten minutes stagehands reset the set. This happens right before our eyes. The genius of Phillips is giving the audience the opportunity to have a conversation while this is going on. Nothing truly remarkable happened in the first act. Its unremarkable nature was, in fact, was quite remarkable. There are going to be some interesting conversations going on during this non-intermission.

The actors start the show from the top, except this time they are doing it in silence. There are two new audience members seated arguably in the best seats in the house. As everyone’s conversation has subsided, these new audience members conversation is just starting. We’ll call the more aggressive White male, Jimbo (Max Stewart) and the more liberal leaning White women, Suze (Barbara Figgins). The topic of Jimbo’s conversation: If you can be any race, what race would you be? Poor guilt-ridden, bleeding-heart Suze is verbally abused by Jimbo. She refuses to answer, she doesn’t want to be wrong for one thing. Next to walk into this conversation is a white man we’ll call Mack (Collin Quinn Rice). He clearly knows what race he wants to be, Latinx, not Latino, Latinx. He practically fetishizes the Latinx. Rounding out this coterie, is European born Bets (Carly Cornelius). Asked the same question, Bets answer is probably the weirdest or rather the most interesting. She eventually comes around.

Initially, this conversation seems to have no bearing on the Frasier family’s affairs, with their prying questions and uneasy answers. I was tempted to disregard the actions on stage for the action happening in the audience. However, as Act ll progresses, the two plotlines converge and interact, creating some of the most hilarious comedy I’ve seen on stage in a very long time.

“Fairview” is an exploration on the white gaze. Writer Jackie Sibblies Drury has let us in on the private thoughts of white people. We get an idea of how people create whole scenarios based solely on race, especially the Black race. They weren’t even listening to The Frasiers. They made up the story to suit their individual biases. Director Phillips has made the “white gaze” an actual gaze done by actual white audience members. We see how matter of factly racist tropes are spewed especially when it’s “just amongst us”. This play is also an exploration in the art of the mindfuck. The Urban Dictionary describes a mindfuck as something to confuse or reshape your thought the way the "mind-fucker" wants you to think. making you question, doubt, or acquire a new set of ideas based on what the perpetrator has told you. Susan Lori Parks did a mindfuck with Topdog/Underdog. By naming her characters Lincoln and Booth, she tells us what is going to happen. Yet we act like we don’t know what will happen. Jackie Sibbles Drury is a bit more sly but equally effective.

This production is excellent. The ensemble was perfect. The Choreography by Jyreika Guest, who was magic in “How Blood Goes” another excellent production, was engaging and fun. Special recognition must go to Props Designer Mariah Bennett (you’ll understand when you see the show). The costumes by Alexandria Richardson ran the gamut from plain to unforgettable.

 Theater should challenge and inspire. Theater should beg you to question and dare you to act. Theatre should teach and enlighten. “Fairview” does all these things and if you have a heart it will move you, and don’t we deserved to be moved…….. ain’t it time!

HIGHLY RECCOMMENDED

When: Through May 28

Where: The Revival, 1160 E. 55^th Street Chicago

Running time: 120 minutes

Tickets: $35

Contact: definitiontheatre.org

There is a saying among the Maasai people that if you do not give an elephant a proper burial, it will haunt you for days. Lynn Nottage’s play Mlima’s Tale is an elephant ghost story. And in it we learn, elephants never forget!

Mlima is a legendary elephant on the savannas of a Kenyan game preserve where he lives. This elephant is personified by David Goodloe. He is a mountain of male beauty as well he should be; Mlima means mountain in Swahili.

Goodloe's perfectly toned body glistens under the atmospheric lighting by Jared Gooding, placed against the stark set by Joy Ahn. The setting foretells the clandestine events to come. As audience members we are ready to hear Mlima's tale.

 He is being pursued by two poachers for his tusks. Mlima tells of his origins and family life in detail.

“I was once a proud warrior, unafraid to be seen,” Mlima tells us. But that was “before the violent crackle, before the drought and the madness.” Now, “I run more than I walk, and I can never catch my breath. They are watching me. Watching always. I hear them all around me. And I run, more than I walk.”

But soon enough, Mlima is hit with a poison arrow. Not wanting to bring attention to their crime, the poachers choose not to shoot him. Instead, they watch him die an agonizingly slow death. When his death finally arrives, Mlima smears his body and face with white paint, reminiscent of the ritual body painting of African tribes.

We see Mlima's tusks travel from place to place, from one corrupt official to the next even more corrupt official, and around the world, until they end up in the home of the nouveau riche as a status symbol.

But the spirit of Mlima travels with the tusks and is present in the dealings between poachers, park rangers, wildlife directors, ivory traders, exporters, businessmen, ivory carvers, art dealers and ivory enthusiast. Everyone involved in the illicit movement and sale of the tusks receives a mark from the ghost of Mlima, a scarlet letter of sorts.

Director Jerrell Henderson has done an excellent job using 6 actors (Lewon Johns, Michael Turrentine, Collin McShane, Ben Chang, Christopher Thomas Pow and Sarah Lo) to portray 18 characters in this tale of greed, treachery and ivory to stunning results. The ensemble was some of the best work I’ve seen from a cast. Special mention must go to Lewon Johns for his interpretation of a Nigerian Government Official. His accent and characterization were spot on, as was the entire cast. Scene and costume changes are done quickly and effortlessly making the 90-minute runtime flies by.

Nottage, a graduate of the Yale School of Drama has won two Pulitzers for Sweat and Ruined, and is a MacArthur genius grant recipient among other honors. (My personal favorite Nottage play is Intimate Apparel.) Mlima's Tale is different in structure than her previous character driven plays. This is a tale told in the African folklore style.

Griffin Theatre's Mlima’s Tale is a beautiful, mesmerizing story that I promise you won’t forget. It runs at the Raven Theatre, 6157 N. Clark February 23 – March 21, 2020,  Thursday, Friday & Saturday at 7:30 pm. Sunday at 3:00 pm.