"Shadow/land" at The Public Theater

 

Public Theater production photo by Joan Marcus

The Public Theater always seems to find interesting plays to produce. Past triumphs include Passing Strange and Hamilton, just as examples. But as we saw on our last visit, not every new thing they try is a triumph. This world premiere, Shadow/land by Erika Dickerson-Despenza, has high aspirations: it's the first of a ten-part cycle of plays about the New Orleans diaspora brought about by Hurricane Katrina. We decided to take a flyer on this one since it's our first night in town.

The Play

Ruth and her mother, Magalee, are both trying to protect their family's legacy (the bar/nightclub called Shadow/land) as Hurricane Katrina makes landfall and threatens to flood much of New Orleans. The bar itself represents the family legacy, not only because Ruth's father used to play there, but it also has ties all the way back to an ancestor who worked to buy her own freedom from slavery. As such, preserving the business is as much a symbol of continuing the family legacy as it is a means for Ruth to (perhaps) by her own freedom.

There's not a lot of mystery as to what's going to happen here. Katrina is a historical event, after all. But much of the play is interesting, even as the available stage space shrinks down to the middle of the actual bar. And on the periphery, we see the Grand Marshal dancing, beckoning to the aging, moderately demented Magalee to join the procession of ancestors.

The Production

I'm a sucker for special effects, and any time you can flood the stage convincingly, I'm all in. But the dwindling space available for Ruth (Joniece Abbott-Pratt) and Magalee (Lizan Mitchell) to operate might be a little too symbolically linked to their shrinking options in life. (Also unclear is why an operating bar business only has two bottles of water available, but that's the script.) Although the set is visually impressive, I found some of the language hard to follow, partly because it's in Creole dialect at times, but mostly because it was just hard to distinguish. Sometimes I was just missing some nuance of the dialogue, but sometimes a line would land and I would miss it, and now I don't know whether I've missed some important detail. So that was a bit frustrating, and I overheard several audience members saying the same as they left.

Also visually impressive was the performance of Christine Shepard as the Grand Marshal--great costume and makeup, but also wonderful dance and mime work. It's not a huge part of the overall show, but it's very important to the atmosphere and the mythos of the play.

Bottom Line

Ultimately, I don't have a lot to say about the show. The script didn't tell me a lot I didn't already know, but it did it in a pretty dramatic way, though rather predictably. I give the show high marks for atmosphere, but only middling grades for dramatic interest.

I'm unclear whether the remainder of the play cycle is planned to follow this particular family, or whether we'll see other characters and story lines develop. I'm mildly interested to see what comes next, but also not eager to be first in line when the next one comes out.

This premiere run goes through Sunday, May 28th at the Public Theater in lower Manhattan.