St. Louis Eats and Drinks

Fireflies

There’s a hurricane happening in the Hotchner Studio Theatre at Washington University.

In only 90 minutes, the storm forms, erupts and passes, but The Black Rep gives Donja R. Love’s play Fireflies every possible bit of energy necessary for the full-blast script to leave an audience barely holding on.

It’s late summer 1963. We’re at a home not terribly far away from Birmingham, Alabama. The play opens on the day of the horrible church bombing that killed four innocent girls. Olivia (Zahria Moore) is married to Charles (Eric Connors). He’s a pastor who works for the civil rights movement, a very public face; she writes his speeches and sermons. The stress of their lives is heavy. Calls about young men in jails, a request to speak at the girls’ funeral in Birmingham, the weight of knowing how vulnerable they are in the world they live in – it’s a burden. He’s gone from home often. She coordinates his schedule and pounds out rhetoric on short notice, rhetoric that enhances his already-fiery reputation.

But Olivia seems sort of off-bandwidth. There’s something that isn’t quite right. We aren’t sure if her hearing bombs going off in her head is a metaphor or just what. Writing a letter to a friend, she seems dreamy. Or distracted. Nevertheless, when Charles comes home from an overnight trip, she’s right at it, cooking his supper and trying to humor his eager advances. But beyond the domesticity and the worries about safety because of their participation in the movement, there’s something else. Why is she looking for something in the jacket he shed when he walked in the house?

When Charles begins talking about the bombs Olivia hears, we begin to realize they’re symptoms of the tension she’s feeling. She says she dreamed the fireflies outside were childrens’ souls going off to God. We learn that Charles drinks pretty seriously – and that Olivia is, after many years of marriage, pregnant. But that turns out to be only a start.

Yes, it’s a lot for 90 minutes. It’s packed. The performances of Connors and Moore are mesmerizing. Director Andrea Frye has this storm under precise control – which is to say it doesn’t look like anything but spontaneity. Dunsi Dai’s set is a good part of the work, and the lighting of Sean Savoie is impeccable.

Emotions. Surprises. Great work from the two actors in this very intimate setting.

 

Fireflies

through February 27

The Black Rep

Hotchner Studio Theatre at Washington University

theblackrep.org/fireflies

 

Good People

To pull oneself up by the bootstraps, one must first have boots. That’s one of the themes of Good People, the David Lindsay-Abaire play brought to us by Stray Dog Theatre.

Margie Walsh, an about-to-be-middle-aged woman in south Boston, is the struggling single mother of a disabled adult daughter. Played by Lavonne Byers, she’s just lost another job, this one as a cashier at a dollar store. She’s tough and brassy but tired, beaten down by life’s repeated smacks upside the head, as her mother probably would have said. The neighborhood known as Southie has been in real life a blue-collar area for several generations – and indeed gained a reputation when violence erupted there because of school desegregation in the mid-Seventies. Her landlady Dottie, Liz Mischel, is also, sort of, her friend and her babysitter. Then there’s her even more raucous pal from high school, Jean, played by Stephanie Merritt, who’s particularly given to egging Margie on. They make quite a trio with their repartee, especially in the first act. No one seems to be hiring and Margie is desperate.

It turns out that one of her school friends, Mike, here Stephen Peirick, she dated for a couple of months, made the transition from Southie to med school. He’s now a reproductive endocrinologist. Margie’s so desperate for a job that she manages to get into his office to see him. She doesn’t put on any airs in the visit, acknowledging she has no idea what kind of a doctor that would be or what she could do in his office, but doesn’t he have something? He doesn’t, and she shames him into an invitation to the birthday party his wife is throwing for him that weekend. Maybe, she says, someone there will have a job for her.

Mike phones to tell her the party is canceled because their daughter is sick, but Margie doesn’t believe him and shows up anyway. High drama ensues.

Byers may have been made for this role. She’s so authentic, it becomes uncomfortable to watch. It certainly is for Peirick’s Mike, who frequently looks as though he wishes he were dealing with the IRS or having his teeth pulled. Instead he’s coping with Margie in front of his wife, the work of Laurell Stevenson, who seems pleasant and mildly interested in their unexpected visitor.

This is the second show that’s in town right now set in eastern Massachusetts and dealing with racism, classism, and probably some sexism, too. It all works, and the accents are mostly very good indeed.

Gary Bell directed, and it was a wise choice to have Margie be bristly instead of merely downtrodden. Josh Smith’s scenic design was versatile and Tyler Duenow did the lighting design. As usual, Justin Been’s sound design was spot on.

Fine ensemble work overall in a play that could descent into soap opera territory but never does. Well played.

 

Good People

through February 26

Stray Dog Theatre

Tower Grove Abbey

2336 Tennessee Avenue

straydogtheatre.org

Stick Fly

Is there anything quite so stinging as rejection from a parent? It brands the soul of a person. No matter how well, over time, it seems to heal, there are permanent gashes. Those who pay attention know that perfectly normal-seeming people can have these internal wounds, people perfectly functional until something makes them surface. Then, deep inside, there’s the quivering child or teenager feeling off-balance just like they used to.

It seems to be a universal phenomenon. I’ve seen a father insult his child in front of the child’s teacher, and an expensively-dressed woman go white as a sheet in Saks Fifth Avenue when her mother delivers a verbal slash. They’ll never be too old not to remember at least some specific incidents of being shoved into the ditch.

Stick Fly, the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis’ current offering, courtesy of director Chanel Bragg, takes us to a lovely house on Martha’s Vineyard. It’s been in the possession of a single African-American family for many generations. Now the two grown sons of the current owners are arriving for the weekend, bringing with them the women with whom they’re in serious relationships. The younger son, Spoon or Kent (Richard Fabre), is going to introduce his fiancee, Taylor (Amber Reauchean Williams) to his parents. Flip (DeShawn Harold Mitchell)’s girl, Kimber (Blair Lewin) is white, a fact he tries to explain away beforehand by saying she’s Italian.

Dad Joe (Ron Himes) is a neurosurgeon. Flip’s a plastic surgeon. Spoon has both a law degree and one in business – but, as Dad says, he thinks he can be a writer, and how can you do that if you’re going to start a family and be responsible? Is this the first fly, so to speak, in the ointment? There’s a lot of “I paid for your ______” in Dad’s conversation, we notice. The women’s credentials are pretty good, too, although not outshining the sons; Kimber teaches in an inner city school. Taylor, whose late father was a Pulitzer Prize-winning author of books about race. She’s now an entomologist, particularly interested in flies. To add to the mix of the household is the teenaged Cheryl (Bobbi Johnson). Her mother has worked for the family for several decades, but is ill – Cheryl, poised and amiable, is taking her place for the time being and handling the housekeeper role well. The mother of the household is coming in from New York the next day, says dad when the crew arrives, but she never gets there.

Experienced theatre-goers soon begin to wonder where the conflicts are going to arise. The answer is Everywhere. It’s astounding the number of crosscurrents that author Lydia R. Diamond creates. Race, yes, but also class, gender relationships and family, all gradually swirling around each other until the air is frothing. While things are complex, they’re not confusing. Still, I found myself sitting bolt upright at a couple of points wondering what would come next.

Director Bragg has created a well-meshed group of actors. Fabre’s Spoon and Himes’ Joe resonate particularly well, with performances both deep and wide. As Cheryl, Bobbi Johnson is a charmer, showing the poise of an older teen and yet the vulnerability. Strong work, too from Mitchell, Williams and Lewin.

The stage at the Burges Theatre at COCA is deep, and the set from Kyu Shen is a good one, delineating several parts of the house. It does, however, make it difficult for voices to project because of the depth, particularly in the set’s kitchen, where actors are often facing the side or rear walls. (There are several scenes where actors are talking over each other, clearly a script choice, not an accident.) Amina Alexander’s lighting direction helps us move along with the action.

A strong, well-defined piece of work demanding attention and thought with themes both universal and specific. Pretty much a don’t-miss.

 

Stick Fly

through March 6

Repertory Theatre of St. Louis

Berges Theater at COCA

6880 Washington Ave, University City

repstl.org/

Iphigenia in Splott

It’s hard not to be intrigued just by the title of Iphigenia in Splott. The smooth, romantic-sounding name, even for someone who never heard of the princess in Greek myth, set upon the thudding single syllable that means – what? Is this a wisp of silk floating above a muddy street?

Actually, that’s batting .500. Upstream Theater’s current offering is about a young woman named Effie whose life is, well, not a struggle, because she doesn’t struggle. She languishes in a barebones existence of a nasty boyfriend, plenty of alcohol and a modicum of pot. She’s angry and defensive against a world that ignores her. Splott is a neighborhood in Cardiff, the capitol of Wales. It, too, languishes in poverty as industrial jobs evaporated and small businesses did, too. The best that can be said for Splott is that it was occasionally mentioned in “Dr. Who”. (Shirley Bassey, who sang “Goldfinger”, is known for being from Tiger Bay, another slum nearby, but moved to Splott when she was 2. Tiger Bay at least got a zippy name.)

Playwright Gary Owen knows whereof he speaks – he has said that Effie’s flat is about 6 doors from where he once lived. Effie is brought to loud, vivid life by Jennifer Theby-­Quinn in a spine-tingling performance. She’s had a hard enough life to operate on the I’ll-strike-first level, even with her boyfriend. She describes her daily existence with an up-yours fervor that takes no prisoners, not even her grandmother, who’s gone back to work at the till of a grocery store to have money to give Effie. Effie doesn’t work, she gives us glisteningly clear descriptions of her hangovers, and lives an altogether purposeless life.

Then she meets a man, a recently-discharged soldier. Perhaps because he, however reluctantly, reveals his vulnerable side to her, it shakes Effie. To her surprise, it warms her, leaves her floating by the time she leaves him the following morning.

But things don’t go well. While the audience isn’t surprised by that, the story winds on, drawing us further and further in. It keeps surprising us. Theby-Quinn gives us 100 minutes, no intermission, of no-holds-barred Effie.

Her Welsh accent is quite good – I had a friend in Cardiff for more than fifty years, visited her when I could, and have heard a fair amount of Welsh citizens speaking English their way. Just like the real thing, it’s occasionally a little unintelligible,. Most of the Britishisms (that phrase may offend any Welsh reading this, for which I apologize) are kept in, like buying things at a cancer shop, which is one kind of resale shop, or the Co-op, where her nan, or grandmother, has gone back to work.

Patrick Siler has orchestrated a fine piece of work using Owen’s script and Theby-Quinn’s talent. The scenic and costume design are from Laila Alvarado, and Joseph W. Clapper did the lighting design along with co-designer and master electrician Tony Anselmo. Kareem Deanes created the sound design, subtle but very effective. And Teresa Doggett – who is originally from Wales – is the dialect coach whose efforts show so well.

Not an easy, comfortable piece of work but for those prepared to be almost blown out of their seat, it’s a remarkable experience. And not for the kiddies.

 

Iphigenia from Splott

through February 6

Upstream Theater

The Marcelle Theater

3310 Samuel Shepard Drive

upstreamtheater.org