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Play With Fire

Charlayne Woodard’s name isn’t exactly a household word. Fans of the New York stage may remember Woodard, an actress and singer, from her acclaimed debut in Dreamgirls or her work in Suzan Lori-Parks’ groundbreaking drama In the Blood. But Woodard is also an accomplished playwright, and Pretty Fire, the autobiographical one-woman show she penned and first performed in 1992, has received numerous awards.

Pretty Fire, which can be seen at the Hattiloo Theatre through September 9th, is less a play and more a collection of short stories intended to be read aloud. With earthy humor and unflinching honesty, it tells the story of a talented, loving, and tightly knit African-American family whose (mostly) happy lives in the urban north are informed by the bucolic landscapes and brutal realities of the Jim Crow South.

Pretty Fire is directed by Teresa Morrow, the Arts for Social Change director for Heifer International. It features gently powerful performances by Hattiloo regulars Charlie Giggers and Tara Hickey and a star turn by Michaelyn Oby, whose beautifully resonant voice is almost too big for the tiny playhouse.

“Pretty Fire,” at The hattiloo theatre, 656 Marshall. Tickets: $15 for adults; $12 for students and seniors. Through September 9th. For more information, call 502-3486.

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Theater Theater Feature

Stowe It

IAin’t Yo’ Uncle is a moderately effective political burlesque that puts a comically liberalized vision of Harriet Beecher Stowe on trial for crimes against complexity. Insulting stereotypes in her book Uncle Tom’s Cabin — a landmark work of abolitionist fiction and a catalyst for the Civil War — are used as evidence against her as she is tried by a panel of her most famous characters, including Uncle Tom, George Shelby, and the unforgettable “Topsy Turvy.” Having acquired life and meaning independent of Stowe’s novel, the characters decide to retell her famous story in an overtly theatrical manner, focusing on everything the writer “left out.”

Considering that even honest Abe Lincoln, the Great Emancipator, still believed in the superiority of the white race, criticisms of this kind are perhaps a little too easy, and success or failure of Robert Alexander’s ambitiously stylized play hinges less on its specific points and more on the illusion and artifice required to make and sustain them. I Ain’t Yo’ Uncle is, at its core, a thumbnail sketch for a clown show, and it absolutely requires a company of trained actors who know their way around all the grotesque stock characters born of minstrelsy and melodrama.

Although the Hattiloo Theatre’s current production boasts some truly inspired moments, the show has been sped up, stripped down, and sanitized for mass consumption. And in spite of committed performances by veteran actors like Jamie Mann and promising newcomers like Charlie Giggers, it never fully captures either the rebellious or the ridiculous sides of a confusing and contradictory play.

In this all-black production, white characters and characters passing for white are outfitted with large rubber animal noses which immediately call to mind the casually racist images found in early cartoons by Warner Bros. and Walt Disney. This could have been a bold and effective choice, but the cast is never able to develop the play’s more cartoonish elements into a cohesive style. As a result, we’re only allowed to fully explore the tangible relationship between Ain’t Yo’ Uncle and Merry Melodies when the cast is called to tap out organic beats for “Topsy Turvy” to rap over.

Mann’s Uncle Tom has a critical eye and a morbidly subversive edge that belies his otherwise submissive image. He is a willing Christ figure with no use for Christianity, a religion that normalizes suffering. Mann also imbues his character with startling self-awareness, and an easy, stomach-turning confession that his murder will “stay in your face” may be this production’s most revolutionary moment. Mann’s Tom is contrasted with the more incendiary figure of George Shelby (Giggers), who has been recast as a gun-toting revolutionary destined to die at the end of a hangman’s rope. Neither, it would seem, are effective saviors for the fatherless and motherless children of the diaspora as represented by the fiercely intelligent but ultimately rudderless character of “Topsy Turvy” who, in the capable hands of Adrienne Houston, sounds less like a product of the Old South and more like a refugee from the more hopeless quarters of modern Memphis, where getting by is often more important than getting over.

On Saturday night, before the show began, Hattiloo’s executive director, Ekundayo Bandele, welcomed his audience and issued a gentle warning. “You’re going to hear the word ‘nigger’ a lot,” he said. And then he repeated the word a few more times so everybody could “get comfortable with it.” Although Bandele’s intentions were at least as honorable as Stowe’s, from a purely semiotic perspective, this probably wasn’t the best way to begin a highly confrontational play about how easily language can tyrannize the user. “Nigger” isn’t a word we’re supposed to be comfortable with, and Bandele’s earnest apology nearly undermined every ounce of his stridently unapologetic play’s satire.

Since Bandele is currently working as theater manager, director, set designer, and carpenter, it’s easy to understand why he might be stretched a little thin and why a show as complicated as I Ain’t Yo’ Uncle might hit the stage full of good ideas but a little undercooked. Still, it comes highly recommended to students of experimental theater as well as to theatergoers who enjoy the dark comedy and revisionist spirit of plays like The Trial of One Short Sighted Black Woman and Stonewall Jackson’s House.

Through March 18th

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Theater Theater Feature

Catching Up

Jennifer Vellenga’s contemporary staging of Medea at Circuit Playhouse should be much more effective than it is. TV news is frequently dominated by tales of missing or abused children. After years of controversial rule, it now appears that Washington’s Republican majority will finally be brought low by a tawdry sex scandal involving underage boys. Americans fetishize not only their children but also those who would seek to harm them. So why is it that Euripides’ ancient tale of a jealous woman who slaughters her own to get back at the man who did her wrong falls so flat?

Tim McMath’s minimal design couldn’t be more effective. Using only a door frame, a little red wagon overflowing with toys, and a lot of astroturf, he presents us with a poetic, nonjudgmental vision of suburbia. Yvonne Same’s Medea is a complex creature eloquently expressing her rage and appropriately conflicted by the dark ramifications of her murderous thoughts. And Aaron Lamb does an excellent job presenting Medea’s philandering hubby Jason as a remorseless social climber ready to destroy his family in order to improve his station in life. In spite of all this, Medea never lives up to the expectations of a play that has gripped our imaginations for over 2,000 years.

Although Medea‘s chorus features a trio of outstanding character actors, the group is never fully integrated into the action. Instead, the three women — presumably Medea’s meddling neighbors — clasp hands and skip about the stage reciting their lines prettily. Greek tragedies live and die by the director’s ability to use the chorus effectively. Although Vellenga’s vision falls short of the mark, this bloodbath of a play is still an excellent way for classically minded folks not inclined to visit haunted houses to get in the Halloween spirit.

Through October 15th

Three weeks ago, when the Hattiloo Theatre, a tiny but well-appointed playhouse in the Edge district, opened its doors to the public, audiences were treated to a simple and simply effective production of Samm-Art Williams’ Home. The dark comedy, which closes this week, is an auspicious debut, and anyone interested in what Memphis’ newest theater has to offer should seriously consider making reservations to ensure a place in one of the Hattiloo’s 70 tightly packed seats.

Home is an Afrocentric answer to Forrest Gump, minus the shallow, sugar-coated philosophy. It tells the story of Cephus Miles, a gentle spirit who spends more time rolling dice in the cemetery than he does in church and who dreams of an uncomplicated life working the soil and loving his sweet Patty Mae. After refusing to go to Vietnam because “Thou shalt not kill,” Cephus is sent to prison and branded a traitor. The reputation dogs him far beyond the prison walls, costing him his job, his health, his land, his love, and his self-respect.

Home follows Cephus from the rich bottomland of rural North Carolina to the electric streets of Harlem in the early 1970s and back again using only the simplest set and costume elements and the force of Williams’ heavily poeticized language. If it’s an example of what we can expect from the Hattiloo Theatre, good things are clearly on the horizon.

Through October 15th

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Theater Theater Feature

On the Edge

All the furniture in Zora’s Lounge is curvy and feminine. Ekundayo Bandele, the charismatic executive director of the Hattiloo Theater, a small 70-seat, black repertory theater located in the Edge district, says all the swirls offset the fact that everything else about Zora’s and the Hattiloo is so boxy and straight.

The lounge and theater, which open for business this week with a production of Samm-Art Williams’ Tony Award-winning drama Home, is Bandele’s second attempt to create a new kind of live-performance space on downtown’s artsy eastern border, his second attempt to throw some curves into the increasingly adventurous but relatively square world of Memphis theater.

In February 2002, it seemed that the 30-year-old Bandele had hit upon a winning combination. Threads, his vintage clothing store on Madison Avenue, next door to the popular soul-food destination Leech’s Family Restaurant, was doing a steady business. The store, which helped finance Bandele’s creative habits, had been designed to easily transform into an intimate in-the-round performance space called the Curtain Theater. It opened with I Remember Ghost, an overwrought but linguistically adventurous collection of three short plays written and directed by, and in one case featuring, Bandele. The plays occasionally erred on the side of coffee-shop pretension, but the writer’s voice was sincere and engaging, and the Curtain Theater’s seats were full most nights.

Between Bandele’s theatrical skills and his entrepreneurial spirit, it seemed as though Threads and the Curtain Theater had a bright future, but shortly after I Remember Ghost closed, Bandele shut down the entire operation. Taking his tortured, final bows, he told his fans that it had all been “too successful.”

“I’m a writer,” Bandele says. “And I thought I would be able to take my laptop into the store, and when I wasn’t busy, I could write. But I couldn’t. I was either tending the store or out shopping for the store, and when you’re an artist, anything that keeps you from your work makes you unhappy.”

Bandele’s unhappiness was intensified by the ongoing trolley construction outside his store/theater. It was noisy, dusty, and inconvenient. It made parking difficult. It forced businesses in the construction zone to tighten their belts and get creative in order to survive. Many, like Leech’s, didn’t.

“We had jackhammers running all day long,” Bandele says. “And MLGW was always coming over turning stuff on and turning stuff off. It was impossible.”

Now the trolley construction is complete, and with the addition of restaurants such as the popular coffee shop Quetzal, the Edge neighborhood finally seems to be fulfilling its promise. Even Off Beale Live, the exotic dance club which recently opened in the neighborhood, has an adjoining steak house.

Bandele spent the years between closing Threads and opening the Hattiloo working on a novel, which he completed in 2005. The frustration of finding a publisher and the desire to develop a forum to address the never-ending issues of segregation and racial discrimination led him to reconsider the possibility of starting a new theater.

“When I asked [Playhouse on the Square’s executive producer] Jackie Nichols if he could help,” Bandele says, “he asked if I knew how many people had approached him about starting a black repertory theater.” According to Bandele, Nichols was dubious but open and helpful. He and longtime Playhouse actor/benefactor Gene Katz walked him through the process of getting his board of directors together and his not-for-profit status in order. Nichols, who is currently engaged in a major capital campaign to build a new state-of-the art theater at the corner of Cooper and Union, introduced him to potential donors and helped him find equipment and even scripts for the first season.

“It’s been incredible,” Bandele says, praising the many people who have helped him take the Hattiloo from the idea stage to reality in nine short months. “Raising money has actually been easy.”

The Hattiloo Theater is composed of Zora’s Lounge, named in honor of African-American author Zora Neale Hurston, a small rehearsal space, and an intimate auditorium with a proscenium stage. There are no bad seats, but the size of the space and limited wings will make larger shows next to impossible and force designers and directors to be creative.

“We’re really happy with the space,” Bandele says, acknowledging that a lot of good work comes out of tiny neighborhood theaters in New York and Chicago.