“SUGAR-MOUTH SAM DON’T DANCE NO MORE” and “ORRIN” [Drama/Drugs/Family/One-Acts/Race/Romance] A: Don Evans; D: Helaine Head; P: Negro Ensemble Company; T: St. Marks Playhouse (OB); 5/6/75-5/11/75 (8)
Note: No photos of
this production are available.
This pair of one-acts
was produced by the Negro Ensemble Company as part of their month-long 1975 “Season-Within-a-Season”
festival of workshop productions. They were “small and predictable,” wrote Mel
Gussow, but had “a sharpness in the writing, embellished by the performances.”
Both plays had
prodigal characters attempting to make homecomings. The title character in “Orrin”
(Taurean Blacque), a drug dealer/junkie, was kicked out of his middle-class
Philadelphia home by his moralistic dad (Carl Gordon). He returns uninvited
eight months later, his presence proving disruptive.
Sam (also Carl Gordon) in “Sugar-Mouth
Sam Don’t Dance No More” has been having an erratic love affair with Verda Mae
Hollis (Lea Scott) for years. He returns to her place yet one more time to
rekindle the flame before he again departs, Tired of his infidelity, Verda Mae's sense of womanly independence emerges.
Like Gussow, Edith
Oliver saw value in these short plays, especially in their character depiction.
Next up: Suggs
