Aishah Rahman's well-acted play suffers from thematic overkill
The loss of one's child is, as most of us see it, the most tragic event possible in anyone's life. Not only is it devastating to the individual members of the dead child's family, but it is destructive to the whole family structure. We see the crushing impact of such a loss in "The Mojo and the Sayso," now playing at ACT Theatre.
The play, by Aishah Rahman, is the second main stage production of the Hansberry Project, ACT's collaborative venture with community organizations to honor, support and celebrate the rich African-American theatrical tradition and broaden the audience for such works. It's partially successful.
The acting is good. And on the night I was there, the audience was among the most racially mixed at any theatrical event I've been to in Seattle - save for the memorial performance honoring August Wilson shortly after his death. This production met its goals in those respects.
Unfortunately, although the 20-year-old play is moving, it attempts too much. It is based on a true incident. A young father and his son set out on an errand one Saturday morning and encounter a carload of men who had obviously been drinking. The men got out of the car and in hostile fashion accosted them. The father told his son to run; they both took off. Sadly, the men turned out to be plainclothes policemen, and the son was shot in the back and killed.
The tragedy ratchets up a level when you realize the policemen were white and the father and son were African-Americans. Anyone would have been frightened by the encounter. Given the racism of American society, a black man has reason to be doubly alarmed.
The action on stage takes place years after the death. Each member of the family is grasping for a "mojo," a charm to make life bearable, to give strength, perhaps even to provide hope. The father seeks solace in obsessive attention to his dream car, a Ford Galaxie that he is rebuilding in the living room of the family home. The mother lights candles and finds support in her church. The victim's half brother turns away from family and society, and under the assumed name "Blood" looks for meaning in half-hearted delinquency.
There's no forgiveness, no understanding until the very end. And even then it seems somewhat unrealistic. These people have been torn apart by the death and can scarcely relate to one another, and certainly can't talk about what happened on that frightful day.
Thus the play deals with an issue to which we all can relate. Set in an African-American milieu, it explores a universal tragedy. The weakness is that it turns in on itself. The author seems to be enmeshed in three themes: the universal, the true story on which she based the play and African-American culture. That's two themes too many.
The impact of the mother's church on the family is profound, just as the impact of religion in all its guises is powerful in the larger African-American community. The author shocks her audience with her exploration of this relationship, but it's a side issue that dangles as an incomplete theme. It's included because of its relationship to the true story, even though it's poorly related to the universal theme.
The poetry and rhythm of jazz, blues, rap and hip-hop, all taken from African-American music, are the foundations for much of American music and, since the '60s, of popular music worldwide. This music is hinted at in some of the language of the play. Director Valerie Curtis-Newton believes that it is central. I saw it as an aside, tossed in but not mined.
Elements of this production, too, work against the play. The set is brilliantly suited for theatre-in-the-round, but the car is too big for this stage. The actors are cramped. They have barely enough room to move around it. And the car on stage doesn't match the description given in the dialogue.
White gloves and red-and-orange lights shining onto the stage from off-stage entrances evidently have symbolic import. Their significance wasn't clear to me.
The great strength of this production is the acting, particularly Lindsay Smiling as Acts, the father, and Tracy Michelle Hughes as Awilda, the mother. Smiling takes us on a heartbreaking ride as he moves from rage to pathos to hope. In his attention to that hulk of a car we sense all his longing for his lost son and his fractured marriage.
Hughes as the mother is a coiled spring wound tighter and tighter by a religious commitment her husband and living son can't share. She wants answers she can never have. It's agonizing to watch her face contort with emotional pain and the tears roll down her cheeks. Jose A. Rufino as Blood and Timothy McCuen Piggee as the pastor do well also.
Director Valerie Curtis-Newton views this play as representing a unique contribution to African-American theatrical writing. She likens the writing to jazz improvisation, suggesting the timing, the images, the surprises take us on a trip we shouldn't question and then bring "us back to a place we recognize only it's different." Somehow, I missed that trip.
"The Mojo and the Sayso" runs Tuesdays-Sundays through September 30. ACT Theatre is located at 700 Union Street. Tickets from $10.00 to $54.00. Call ACT Box Office at 292-7676 or visit www.acttheatre.org.
[[In-content Ad]]
