"Stirring the Pot"
In life, they say, the best way to someone’s heart is
through their stomach. Judging from all the plays about food-making (recent
examples being Seared and Richard
Nelson’s Apple Family series), some writers think it’s also the best way to an
audience’s heart. Even if we don’t get
to eat anything (which does sometimes happen!), just watching a meal being
prepared can be fulfilling. |
| Nikkole Salter (rear), Portia. All photos: Jeremy Daniel. |
Add to the recipe tasty characters, season it with
spicy dialogue, wash it down with a satisfying narrative, and top it off with a
superb ensemble and you have Stew,
Zora Howard’s zesty dramedy, in what Michelin might rate a three-star
production, at Tribeca’s Walkerspace.
 |
| Kristin Dodson. |
Even the best meals
sometimes have a little gristle, however, and Stew has a bit of its own. Everything else is so appetizing,
though, that few theatregoers are going to leave this 90-minute repast with
growling stomachs.
 |
| Toni Lachelle Pollitt, Portia, Kristin Dodson, Nikkole Salter. |
The main dish being
prepared is the eponymous one, created as we watch by a lower-middle-class black
family, the Tuckers, in Mount Vernon, New York. Ruled by the imperious matriarch,
Mama (Portia), the feisty Tuckers include Mama’s two daughters, the mid-30s Lillian
(Nikkole Salter) and the not-yet-18-year-old Nelly (Tony Lachelle Pollitt),
along with Lillian’s 14-year-old daughter, Lil’ Mama (Kristin Dodson).
 |
| Toni Lachelle Pollitt, Nikkole Salter, Kristin Dodson. |
Lawrence E. Moten III’s
realistically detailed set places us in Mama’s kitchen, which has a small
upstage staircase leading to the upstairs bedrooms. It’s early in the morning
and Mama, dressed in a turban-like headscarf and a floor-length house dress
(costumes by Dominique Fawn Hill), is tending to the stew she’s preparing for
the 50 people who’ll be attending an unspecified church event. Suddenly, a loud
pop is heard outside, but Mama dismisses as probably from a tire blowout.
 |
| Toni Lachelle Pollitt, Kristin Dodson, Nikkole Salter, Portia. |
The noise brings into
view Mama’s sleepy family, each wearing a similar headscarf, who soon enough
begin to contribute to helping—with different levels of enthusiasm and ability—prepare
the meal, while bickering mightily with one another. Personal details seep out
slowly, many instigated by conversations on the wall phone, the time being in
the pre-cellphone days.
 |
| Toni Lachelle Pollitt. |
Mama’s having dizziness
issues: “It’s nothing. It comes and goes.” Lillian’s in a difficult relationship with her
husband, J.R. Her young son, Junior, is hanging out with a neighbor whose
mother, claims the disgusted Mama, once opened her bag to offer her a mint only
for roaches to come crawling out. Nelly is going hot and heavy with a boy she
calls her “man,” not her boyfriend: “A boyfriend is temporary. A man is
forever.” Lil’ Mama is auditioning for a school production of Richard III.
 |
| Toni Lachelle Pollitt, Nikkole Salter. |
This last inspires a
memorable scene, since each family member has participated in local
theatricals. Mama, in fact, never tires of reminding everyone that she was “the
founder and director emeritus of the Mt. Vernon High Dramatic League as well as
the lead soprano at the Greater Centennial A.M.E. Zion Church.” Lil’ Mama
becomes the reluctant subject of Mama’s coaching her in a speech mistakenly attributed to Queen Elizabeth, when it’s actually Queen Margaret who speaks it. It's surprising no one's caught this.
 |
| Portia. |
The speech, in which a
mother refers to her baby’s death, is used for comic effect but will later
reverberate within the play’s thematic stew, like much of what we’re watching. Stew may seem like a conventional family
sitcom—even with its outbursts of interfamilial vituperation—but it’s actually
much darker, as represented by Avi Amon’s unsettling inter-scene music, and the
hints dropped (too) subtly throughout, suggesting that
perhaps the drama, for all its external specificity, is more metaphorical than naturalistic.
 |
| Portia. |
One senses this in the
way the characters all seem to be reflections of one another, sometimes
expressing themselves with phrases we’ve heard someone else use, the ways their
personal stories mirror those of others, or even how their names intersect, as
if they’re part of an unending cycle.
Unusually for a play
about contemporary black characters, racial issues are not overtly foregrounded,
but are embedded in the dialogue’s DNA. Everyone speaks in black dialect, even
the self-aware Mama who nevertheless assumes grammar police authority when
others misuse the language, such as saying “lay” when it should be “lie.”
On the other hand, her
own words can be as colloquially ungrammatical as anyone else’s: “Lil’ Mama,
that hair ain’t coming out them pins by itself.” So it’s sure to come as a
surprise when, to cap the Shakespearean coaching scene, she delivers the speech
in question with the piercing intelligence and sensitivity you’d expect from a
seasoned classical actor. 
Most surprising, though,
is the play’s ending, which subverts what we’ve been watching into a playwright’s
head game. To say more would probably be unfair but this viewer was forced to return
to the script to search for the clues that led to Howard’s conclusion.
Putting that stringy
morsel aside, Stew offers an exceptional
group of actors whose contributions are stirred by the masterful direction of
Colette Robert. Taking full advantage of Zora Howard’s deliciously articulated
sequences of overlapping speeches and simultaneous conversations, she has
cooked up one of the season’s most nourishing thespian concoctions.
Portia, with a voice that
could bring any stew to a boil, simmers with maternal power, compassion, sarcasm,
and vulnerability as Mama. Pollitt’s salty Nelly, Salter’s bitter Lillian, and
Dodson’s sweet Lil’ Mama are scrumptious portraits that, combined, create as
close to an authentic family feeling as you’re likely to see on any local
stage. You might want to taste this one while it’s still on the stove.
Walkerspace
46
Walker St., NYC
Through
February 22
