Dominique Morisseau

NAATC keeps high standard with run of ‘Detroit ’67’

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By John Lyle Belden

The Naptown African American Theatre Collective (NAATC) is taking its slogan, “We Don’t Follow the Trends, We Are the Trend,” seriously.

Indianapolis’s first Black Equity theatre company, the 501c3 nonprofit organization is dedicated to diverse employment and speaking to the Black experience in all its forms. It also means to make its presence known and felt with excellent productions by great Black talents.

Dominique Morisseau is quickly rising to be a name listed among great playwrights who tell the American story with all its hard truths, names like August Wilson (whose “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” is up next for NAATC) or even Tennessee Williams. A strong qualifier for the play that is her “Fences” or “Streetcar” would be “Detroit ‘67” – her second produced play, it roars through the tragic side of American culture on all cylinders, carrying with it an interesting mix of relatable characters who find the American Dream a nightmare, and no good deed unpunished.

NAATC’s recent production of “Detroit ’67,” directed by D’yshe Mansfield at the Phoenix Theatre Cultural Center, was a superb showcase of local talent. Set in a neighborhood where racial tensions and police brutality lead to widespread riots (now nearly forgotten, but at the time serious enough to call out the National Guard), we see everything from the relative safety of a residential basement. It’s the house siblings Chelle (LaKesha Lorene) and Lank (Ennis Adams, Jr.) inherited from their parents, along with a modest bank account. They understand how truly lucky they are to be Black homeowners at all, but money is tight, and to make ends meet the downstairs is a literal underground after-hours “Party” spot, where those who don’t want to risk police encounters at bars and clubs can enjoy some drinks, music, and the company of friends.

Their friend, Sly (Daniel A. Martin) has an inside line on getting him and Lank a legitimate neighborhood bar, but Chelle is afraid of touching their saved cash for fear of losing it all, especially with the White powers that be all to willing to strike down any Blacks who assert themselves, even legally. Ever on hand is Chelle’s best friend Bunny (portrayed by Dena Toler or Kelly Kel, depending on performance), whose flirty, fun style masks her practical sense.

Further complicating things is Caroline (Sara Castillo Dandurand), a mysterious white woman rescued by Lank from being left for dead in the street. Her mere skin tone spells trouble, but nothing like the secrets her true identity holds.

Layered in with the drama is a healthy helping of sitcom-level humor. Lots of laugh lines are exchanged among friends, with genuine affection expressed among them, and Caroline striving to be less of a burden as she heals. Add to this a good number of Motown hits in background or woven into the plot, and it all starts to look like fun, or at least the hope of a happy conclusion.

But suddenly, outside the basement windows, there are shouts, and fires, and armored vehicles, and gunshots. The party’s over.

Lorene is solid as the woman at the eye of this storm, whose façade of strength hides a fear of becoming crushed – financially, emotionally, even physically — like so many others in her city. Adams is excellent as the young man who realizes he is overdue to fully grow up and stop leaning on her older sister (much as she likes it), but still wanting her to be happy. Martin is once again a master of both comedy and drama as the chill guy dealing with cold reality, and ambitions he is eager to share with Chelle by his side. I’m sure Toler was outstanding as usual, however, I saw a performance with Kel as Bunny, and it felt like the role was written for her. Dandurand plays the cypher well, proving to be the kind of person who can’t help but get into trouble – bringing others with her.

Woven in with this look at family, trust, and life’s struggles are the bigger issues that still don’t seem fixed more than 55 years later, making “Detroit ‘67” an appropriate choice for NAATC’s inaugural season, and worthy of looking up wherever it is staged. Once again, this company is upping the quality of Indy’s cultural scene – setting the trend.

Fonseca: Story of family stuck in ‘Mud’

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By John Lyle Belden

The magic of live theatre is such that more than persons become characters in the drama. A house, for instance, can have a role, or even the concepts of time and culture.

This house on a street in the Mud Row area of West Chester, Penn., has a lot to say, through the people who occupy it. While the means to buy it was less than honorable, it sits firmly in the hands of a pair of sisters at a time when African Americans owning anything was an accomplishment. Each woman takes a different approach to improving their chances of future prosperity – Frances by joining the Civil Rights protests, and Elsie Mae by marrying her unborn child’s father, a member of the “Talented Tenth” – a designation for those meant to uplift fellow Blacks, but here, ironically, a form of elitism.

The daughters of Elsie’s girl, Regine and Toshi, today find themselves with a complex relationship to the old house, as gentrifying developers come around, money in hand, to turn it into a parking lot.

This is life on “Mud Row,” the play by Dominique Morisseau at Fonseca Theatre Company, directed by Josiah McCruiston.

Frances (Lakesha Lorene) and Elsie (Jacquelyn Owens) Jeter are each critical of the other’s intended actions, seeing confronting the police by one, and high society by the other, a fool’s errand — even dangerous. Still, they are family, bound by love and fierce pride. Lorene and Owens also imbue these women with unflagging optimism, foremothers to be honored alongside their ancestors. Their scenes cut in from time to time among modern moments, giving context and fleshing out the “character” of the home.

Regine (Aniqua ShaCole) is no longer a Jeter, having married Devin (Marcus Elliott), and glad to have gotten away from the Mud Row house to live in Philadelphia. However, Grandma Elsie’s Will gave it to her, which she only found out when notified of the cash offer from the developer. Now, the couple has returned, she to resolve difficult memories and he to get an appraisal for a higher price.

Having been abandoned for years, the home is eerily well kept. The reason, at least for the last few months, is a pair of squatters: Toshi (Anila Akua), who abandoned the family years ago for a life of crime and addiction, and her fellow recovering-addict boyfriend Tyriek (Brenton Anderson).

Morisseau’s funny-in-context humor gets quite a few laughs as each couple grouses about “who’s occupying MY house?” as well as the inevitable and mildly violent first encounter.

Akua gives an excellent portrait of a woman struggling with addict-brain, wanting to do good and feel she’s better than the streets, while part of her insists that’s where she belongs. She’s uncomfortable with trust, making her seem even more unreliable. Tyriek, bless his simple soul, has been thug so long he hardly knows any other way to act, though he desperately wants to strive for respectability. Anderson lets us see the flashes of street wisdom and noble eagerness that make him ultimately likable.

ShaCole and Elliott portray Regine as a woman gone bougie, while Devin always had been. Though likely a concept she only heard of in a college history class, she finally managed the family’s Talented Tenth dream, but felt resented by her grandmother for achieving it. Toshi, though, doesn’t remember things the same way.

McCruiston imbues this play with what he calls the spirit of “Sankofa,” a West African word meaning “to retrieve,” in this context to go back to a place and time to recover something important. Fonseca producing director Jordan Flores Schwartz notes she chose this play to begin a 2022 Season of Healing. These characters will need plenty of that.

To further give context to the play, McCruiston set up viewings of “West’s Neighborhood: A Black Woman’s View of the Suburbs” videos by Rachel West, an educator living in the Chicago area. One is shown pre-show, while the second is screened during intermission.  

To paraphrase an unrelated song, will they pave over the past to put up a parking lot? See “Mud Row” through March 20 at 2508 W. Michigan St., Indianapolis; tickets and information at fonsecatheatre.org.

Summit’s ‘Crew’ a bold workplace drama

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By John Lyle Belden

You see the signs, and not just the unusual ones on the bulletin board. Management holds a lot of private meetings; rules start tightening up; workers leave and are not replaced; rumors circulate. The writing is on the wall, perhaps literally when notices go up: people are going to lose their jobs, and perhaps the entire workplace will soon close. 

What had been unthinkable in times of booming industry and union strength has become too common now. I went through a similar situation, perhaps you have, too. And in a recent era, this was the fate of Detroit auto workers in Dominique Morrisseau’s “Skeleton Crew,” the drama presented by Summit Performance at the Phoenix Theatre.

Faye (Dwandra Nickole Lampkin) is within months of 30 years at the plant. She is also: a proud UAW rep; a feisty cancer survivor who can’t – won’t – give up smoking; stubborn protector of her crew, especially Shanita (Akili Ni Mali) and Dez (Kerrington Shorter); practically a mother to the foreman, Reggie (Daniel A. Martin); wise and philosophical, always with something to say; eager to take your money in cards, but not always successful; and a multi-skilled worker who never seems to leave the factory. The fact that she is gay is honestly her least significant trait. 

Shanita is the best on the production line, proud of following her father and helping build something others will be proud to own. She doesn’t even let pregnancy slow her down. As for Dez, he’s got big plans, nice shoes and a gun in his bag. He talks smooth and means well, but the fire within him isn’t always under control. He and Reggie don’t get along, as they seem to assume the worst of each other. Then again, Reggie is right that Dez has been gambling on the premises. 

And as word swirls around that the plant is doomed, someone is quietly stealing from the plant – taking their severance one metal part at a time.

Needless to say, there is a lot of drama and tension as the uncertainty builds. But Morisseau has sprinkled in a healthy dose of workplace humor, and a bit of feeling among the members of this workplace family. It doesn’t take much digging nowadays for these skilled actors to bring the emotions – from concern to frustration – to the surface. Lampkin is a rock. Mali radiates confidence. Shorter gives substance to the angry-young-(black)man archetype. And Martin, known to many for his comic skills, again shows his true range.

Director Melissa Mowry strikes the right balance in the look and feel of the play. The stage (designed by Mejah Balams) is a plant break room, a temporary respite from the noise and stress just outside the back-wall door. Opaque windows show images of industry, and at transitional points in the story, silhouettes of cast members moving rhythmically – men as machines – choreographed by Mowry with the actors. It’s a brilliant visual element that sticks with you.

Powerful drama with strong performances, “Skeleton Crew” has two weekends remaining, through March 13 at the Phoenix, 705 N. Illinois St. For tickets, visit phoenixtheatre.org or go to summitperformanceindy.com.

IRT drama sees current struggles through prism of famous poem

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By John Lyle Belden

Omari is in trouble. He (young black student) lashed out at a (white) teacher, shoving him violently. This is Omari’s “third strike,” and aside from expulsion from his private school, he could face charges. This is a worst nightmare come true for his mother, Nya, an inner-city teacher who sees first-hand the path that young African-Americans too often take from school to prison, known as the “Pipeline” — the name of this play by Dominique Morisseau now on stage at Indiana Repertory Theatre.

This is a play about issues, but more importantly it is a play about people. Though there is a sense it takes place in New York, Morisseau cautions it is truly set in “any inner city environment where the public school system is under duress.” But this is the only point that is vague. To better show what happens to youths like him, she has crafted Omari, Nya and the others in this drama as specific individuals with real struggles who won’t find an easy answer within 90 minutes on the stage.

Omari, played with sincere charm and and a frantic uncertainty by Cole Taylor, has his reasons for what he did, but no one understands — including, to some extent, him. The question of what happens next bears down on him like Sisyphus’ stone.

Jasmine, Omari’s friend and schoolmate, played with an air of “real”ness by Renika Williams, is frustrated both at what is happening to him and her own experience of being regarded as little more than a token at Fernbrook Academy. She’s smart and ambitious, but misses her old neighborhood — she once muses of running away with Omari and writing a book about it, “Ghetto Love.”

Nya’s friend and fellow educator, Laurie — another excellent performance by Constance Macy — rails against the expectations of being the white woman to “save” the school, like Michelle Pfeifer in “Dangerous Minds.” As she approaches the end of her career, the pressures are becoming too much to bear.

Toussaint JeanLouis is Dun, a school security guard who likes to joke with the staff, but takes his thankless job very seriously.

Nya, “Ms. Joseph” to staff and students — a steely performance by Aime Donna Kelly — finds her educator’s tools for organization and control failing her in what seems a hurricane of circumstances. She is both angered and deeply saddened when others don’t trust her.

One of her lessons, shared with us all, is on the poem “We Real Cool” by Pulitzer-winning poet Gwendolyn Brooks. The verse is printed in the play program, and is frequently repeated — its words projected on the walls. The poem’s meaning starts to hit home for Nya; she hears her son shout its lines in her head. Its last three words — “We – Die soon.” — crash upon her like a collapsing ceiling.

Finally, we meet Omari’s father, Xavier — played by Andre Garner with cocky confidence. He has it all figured out, and just needs Omari to get with the program, even if the boy hates him.

But as Xavier and Nya discover, just because you’re “woke” doesn’t mean you have all the facts.

The projected words are part of many brilliant audiovisual enhancements to the deceptively simple stage set, helping to place this drama in today’s world. Also, the story confronts our Youtube reality in which the mistakes we make are forever online, and going viral. Done in one movie-length act, the play’s flow and use of space help suggest its several settings but never release the tension — until the end, when Omari finally has his say.

And at that point, we are all ready to listen.

Directed by Raelle Myrick-Hodges, “Pipeline” is thought-provoking drama, solidly delivered, giving current events a human face. Performances are through Nov. 11 on the Upperstage at IRT, 140 W. Washington St. (just west of Circle Centre). Call 317-635-5252 or visit irtlive.com.