3. AN
OCTOROON
Forget, for the moment,
DJANGO UNCHAINED and 12 YEARS A SLAVE. If anybody needs a reminder of why the
Soho Rep is getting a special award this year from the Drama Desk they need
only to visit the Rep’s current production of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s satirical
take on American racial attitudes as seen through his reimagining of Dion
Boucicault’s 1859 melodrama about slavery, THE OCTOROON (rechristened AN OCTOROON for this adaptation). The award, to be
formally presented on June 1 at the annual Drama Desk Awards ceremony at the
Town Hall, recognizes Soho Rep for “nearly four decades of artistic distinction,
innovative production, and provocative play selection.” These attributes are
outstandingly represented by this unusual presentation, staged with great
inventiveness by the Rep’s artistic director, Sarah Benson.
Chris Myers, Amber Grey, Zoë Winters, Danny Wolohan. Photo: Pavel Antonov.
Unlike
the full-scale, historically accurate revival I saw at the Phoenix Theatre in
1961, this self-referential interpretation essentially deconstructs the play to
examine its sociological heart. Mr. Jacobs-Jenkins, who introduces himself
(through a character dubbed BJJ) as a “black playwright,” followed by the
disclaimer, “I don’t know exactly what that means,” has a playful attitude
toward labels. He also playfully, yet seriously, expresses concern about racial
perceptions, as demonstrated by having a black actor perform in whiteface, a
white actor in blackface, and another white actor in redface (as an Indian),
with the remaining actors working with the colors God gave them. THE OCTOROON,
the vehicle for the playwright’s often very funny, if sometimes vague,
ruminations, on race, was one of the mid-19th-century’s most popular and controversial
melodramas, set on an antebellum Louisiana plantation, Terrebonne.
It tells a
story centered on the attempts of a wealthy but villainous plantation owner,
Jacob Mc’Closky (Chris Myers), to gain possession of the financially troubled Terrebonne
as a way of acquiring Zoe (Amber Gray), the beautiful octoroon (1/8 black)
slave for whom he lusts. The play is filled with dramatic action, including a
major plot development having to do with a self-developing camera owned by McClosky’s romantic
rival, George Peyton (also Mr. Myers), the European-bred, British-accented
nephew of Terrebonne’s aged owner, who loves and is loved by Zoe, although a flirtatious
neighbor, Dora (Zoë Winters), also has George on her mind. George and Zoe’s love is
verboten, though, because of her tiny dollop of black blood (signified, she
declares, by the hint of blue near the quick of her nails and in her eyes). Nearly
everything in Boucicault’s play has something to do with racial attitudes, by
whites toward blacks, blacks toward whites, whites and blacks toward an Indian
named Wahnotee (Danny Wolohan), and vice-versa; Mr. Jacobs-Jenkins’s treatment injects
a modern point of view into this material.
Marsha Stephanie Blake, Chris Myers. Photo: Pavel Antonov.
The
dramatist (whose APPROPRIATE stirred some buzz during the past season) uses
substantial chunks of Boucicault’s original, eliminating or eliding various
characters and sometimes giving their lines to others, but essentially
retaining THE OCTOROON’s structure, essential dialogue, and major plot points,
including a climactic slave auction. The slave characters speak both Boucicault’s
dialect-heavy lines, with their 19th-century manner of representing black
speech (at a time, of course, when blacks were played by whites in blackface),
and present-day black dialect. The latter is heard in interpolated scenes, much of it spoken by two
female slaves, Minnie (Jocelyn Bioh) and Dido (Marsha Stephanie Blake), with
all the comic sassiness you might expect from young women raised in the ghetto.
The irony, of course, lies in their being slaves who look on their situation not as a horror but as jobs. One of the show’s most
brilliantly funny yet provocative moments comes when they parade for their
potential buyers as if strutting in a beauty pageant.
Amber Gray, Zoë Winters. Photo: Pavel Antonov.
In
addition to conveying Boucicault’s plot about love, lust, murder, and enslavement
(the play was influenced by the classic slave drama of only a few years earlier, UNCLE TOM’S CABIN), Mr. Jacobs-Jenkins also explodes
Boucicault's structure by introducing himself as BJJ (another role for Mr. Myers). In
the opening scene, during which he'll put on whiteface, he addresses the audience in white underwear, recounting a
discussion with his imaginary therapist (he can’t afford a real one) and telling
us what led him to create this work. Joining him in a further extension into surrealism scene is the Irish-accented Boucicault himself (a.k.a. The
Playwright [Mr. Wolohan]), with whom BJJ soon joins in a synchronized round of
mutual “fuck you” insults. This kind of believably acted theatrical game playing
occupies almost the entire fourth act, where the action is narrated instead of
acted out as BJJ and the Playwright also stop to explain some of the principles
of melodrama writing, a chief aim of which is to get the audience to feel something.
AN OCTOROON certainly does that, multiple times.
Danny Wolohan, Marsha Stephanie Blake, Jocely Bioh. Photo: Pavel Antonov.
But
the play has many other surprises as well; while it keeps you pondering where
the playwright is going with his theatrical maneuvers, it allows
you at the same time to be drawn emotionally into the tale of Terrebonne
and Zoe. But it also offers diversions that take you down unexpected paths, such when
an actor—unnamed in the program but rumored to be Mr. Jacobs-Jenkins himself—enters on various occasions, dressed
in a long, plaid coat as a shambling-gaited Br’er Rabbit (based on19th-century illustrations, not
as Disney showed him in SONG OF THE SOUTH), wearing a realistic, long-eared rabbit head. The rabbit doesn't participate in the plot, per se, but serves as a sort of stage assistant, stopping occasionally to look questioningly at the audience, almost always getting a laugh in return. His presence adds another touch of the bizarre to the proceedings, yet seems perfectly organic in the world that's been created.
Chris Myers, Danny Wolohan, Amber Gray. Photo: Pavel Antonov.
The
eight-actor company (apart from Br’er Rabbit), makes use of doubling and
tripling; in the final scenes, when McClosky and George must be on stage
simultaneously, Mr. Myers rapidly changes positions so he can play them both. This
culminates in a terrifically staged (by J. David Brimmer) fight scene between
the two in which a large knife figures prominently. I suspect that Mr. Myers loses several pounds night from his tour de force acting and solo fighting. There are no weak
performances here, each actor capturing just the right blend of realism and
exaggeration for characters that range from the melodramatically
stereotypical bad guy McClosky to the flighty Dora to the old slave
Pete to the truthfully tragic Zoe to the gossip-dishing slaves.
Mimi
Lien’s setting also surprises. At first, seated on bleachers, you
believe you’re facing a scenery-less black box space, with a simple door cut
into the back wall, but when the opening scene is over, the entire wall suddenly
falls forward, sending a gust of air toward you and revealing an identical
arrangement in white behind it, including the floor (the rear side of the previous wall). Something similar will
happen later in the play as well. Matt Frey creates outstanding lighting
effects (including a strobe sequence) for the spare scenic backgrounds, while
the costumes, designed by Wade Laboissonniere, are creatively re-imagined versions
of mid-19th-century clothing, especially the colorful dresses worn by Zoe and Dora. As
in a traditional melodrama, musical accompaniment is essential, and for AN
OCTOROON César Alvarez has created excellent melodies that are mostly played by an onstage
cellist, Lester St. Louis.
Putting together this mélange of old-time
melodrama and modern theatricality needs the skills and imagination of a gifted
director, and Sarah Benson must be loudly applauded for her achievement. The
result is unlike anything now playing in New York, and, while the Mr.
Jacobs-Jenkins’s precise intentions may sometimes prove slippery, AN
OCTOROON succeeds on enough levels to make it essential viewing for any serious
theatergoer.