“When Brothers Clash”
Idris Goodwin’s promising but only fitfully satisfying play,
Bars and Measures, at Urban Stages, following a 2015 world premiere in
Sacramento, is only the latest about a fractious yet loving fraternal
relationship. And, boy, as the older brother in a similarly problematic
situation, do I know something about those.
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| Abraham Makany, Shabazz Green, Roderick Lawrence. All photos: Russ Rowland. |
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| Abraham Makany, Shabazz Green, Roderick Lawrence. |
The plot is loosely based on the true story of Tarik Shah, a Muslim musician and martial arts
expert who, targeted in a sting operation, was arrested on terrorism charges by
the FBI in 2001, claimed entrapment, was held for 31 months in solitary, and released
after 13 years.
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| Abraham Makany, Shabazz Green, Roderick Lawrence. |
Bilal (known as “the shah”) is a well-established jazz
bassist and martial arts expert, who’s played with the top names in the field.
Eric (inspired by Shah’s brother, Antoine Dowdell) is a Juilliard-trained, classical
pianist who plays at parties and the like. He also becomes the accompanist to Sylvia
(Salma Shaw), an opera singer, who sings (nicely) a bit of “Caro Mio Ben,” but
who also expresses an interest in jazz, Eventually, Eric lands a job teaching
music at an elite private school, although you have to wonder how someone who says
things like “We ain’t talk about no bunch of other ideas” would land such a
position.
Much of the action takes place in the visitor’s room at Bilal’s
jail, where, as the brothers sit across from each other at a table under the dour
eye of a guard named Wes (Abraham Makany), they bicker and bond. The bonding mainly
happens as they practice scat-singing a jazz routine composed by Bilal. The
bickering concerns Bilal (originally Darryl) having converted to Islam, and to
their musical tastes. Bilal tries to win the mildly hesitant Eric over to jazz,
even giving him exercises to help prepare him for an upcoming concert, where he’ll
be raising money for Bilal’s defense.
And just what does he need a defense for? Since the
playwright takes more than half his play to tell us why Bilal has been
incarcerated, put in solitary, and treated harshly, let’s just say it has do with
reasons reflective of those that led to Tarik Shah’s arrest and conviction. Had
this been the focus of the Bars and Measures, without all the musical fiddle-faddle,
it might have led to a more compelling work of drama.
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| Shabazz Green, Salma Shaw, Roderick Lawrence. |
Among the outstanding moments is a courtroom scene involving
the prosecutor (Makany) and the defense lawyer (Shaw) that crosscuts their dialog in
an effectively contrapuntal way. The play also includes several well-done
musical passages, including Lawrence demonstrating his piano skills and Shaw
her vocal ones. A tentatively romantic scene plays out elegantly as Eric and Sylvia
slow-dance to a recording of “Blue Gardenia.” But there’s also a superb, moody,
background score, composed by Justin Ellington, one of New York’s finest composers
of incidental theatre music.
Bars and Measures includes several interesting developments
but it also has questionable contrivances (like Sylvia’s being a secular Muslim,
or Bilal’s violence just before he goes to trial). Since all the scenes are in
the same neutral, gray-walled space (designed by Frank Oliva and effectively
lit by John Salutz), Goodwin’s dependence on expository flashbacks could be made
clearer, perhaps via timeline projections. And having Eric suddenly break the
fourth wall to speak in direct address should be rethought or introduced
earlier to set up the convention as a framing device.
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| Shabazz Green, Roderick Lewis. |
It also takes too long for Bilal’s crime to be explained,
draining the play of suspense. When the crime becomes the central issue of the
play’s latter third, within which Bilal gets to expound a litany of alleged
anti-Muslim incidents, it creates a lopsided balance in the dramatic structure.
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| Roderick Lawrence, Shabazz Green. |
The direction is also problematic. Kristan Seemel gets acceptably
believable performances from her first-rate cast (although the appealing Lawrence
sometimes swallows words), but her pacing is sluggish and she fails to draw out
the necessary degree of frustrated tension. Without it, the brothers’ simmering
relationship (aside from a few minor flareups) never fully ignites the subtext’s
simmering flames.
Seemel’s production elicits perhaps half of the emotion possible
in this fraternal and political environment. I suspect that there’s a lot more passion
in Bars and Measures than this too measured production is conveying.
Urban Stages
259 W. 30th St., NYC
Through November 10
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