| by Dwight Hobbes Penumbra Theatre Company’s
mainstage this season is turning out to be as lackluster as last year’s was (save the
ponderous bore “Black Eagles”) brilliantly engaging.
One can trust like money in the bank that Penumbra Theatre will faithfully showcase superb
actors. Artistic director Lou Bellamy is, however, hit-and-miss in his selection of
quality scripts. At this time last season, audiences had been treated to Marcia L.
Leslie's absurdist gem “The Trial of One Short-Sighted Black Woman vs. Mammy Louise
and Safreeta Mae,” followed by Gus Edward’s flawless comic drama “Louie
& Ophelia.” Now they’ve been shortchanged, first by “A Lovesong For
Miss Lydia,” Don Evans’ promising play that winds up going nowhere, then by its
current insufferable production of Sharon Bridgforth's static performance work, “Con
Flama.”
Sharon Bridgforth, like many poseurs in the popular genre of masturbatory grandstanding,
has a high-grade pedigree as a so-called playwright (Walker Arts Center, National
Endowment for the Arts, Theatre Communications Group). And, as with all but a precious
few, she doesn’t write plays but perpetrates politically correct pseudo-poetry.
Unlike Ntozake Shange (who’s “...for colored girls who have considered suicide
when the rainbow is enuff” started the genre), Sekou Sundiata, Jovelyn Richards or
Rhodessa Jones, she is not a gifted wordsmith whose art form hinges on daring ingenuity.
Like Robbie McCauley, Daniel Alexander Jones and a myriad more, Bridgforth is just another
plugged-in hack with a slick hustle.
The skimpy premise of “Con Flama” is that the reminiscence of her youth is
somehow significant to someone besides herself. To sustain this delusion she contrives a
series of coming-of-age vignettes in which stilted language amid colorful circumstances
pass for inspired verse conveying heartfelt poignancy. Repeatedly harping on gender and
sexual orientation as matters of the utmost, self-evident immediacy and importance, the
piece stands on a navel-contemplating soapbox of trite rhetoric (spiced from time-to-time
with gratuitous profanity), dragged out for an hour-and-a-half without the respite of even
a ten-minute intermission. The lyrics of just about any given Laura Nyro song more
effectively state the poetic case than Bridgforth's lifeless approximation of art.
The more director Laurie Carlos arbitrarily moves the actors about the stage, the less
sense it makes. Similarly, her choice to have them intermittently echo one another's lines
in a staggered chorus is not only inane but also often an annoying distraction. The pace
plods in an unvaried recitation that leaves one moment virtually indistinguishable from
the next. Carlos and Bridgforth are a perfect match of pretentious would-be artists
attempting to convince the audience that a meaningful experience has been made out of
whole cloth.
Usually even the weakest show stands a chance of being reasonably salvaged by a strong
cast. Not this one. There are musical numbers in which Ambersunshower Smith and Aimee K.
Bryant offer wondrously emotive vocals, but not enough. There are no concrete characters
for any of the cast to get hold of and run with. In fact, based solely on this appearance,
it would be impossible to tell whether Smith, Bryant Mankwe Munika Nkatuati Ndosi, Sonja
Parks, Djola Branner or Zell Miller III can act at all. Carlos stuffs Latina actor Ana
Perea into such awkwardly affected, basically blackface behavior that the performance
borders on minstrelsy. Aside from the eerie beauty of Smith’s keening vocal phrases
and Bryant’s pull-out-the-stops-and-take-’em-straight-to-church gospel styling,
the only unequivocal sign of top notch professionalism is Seitu Ken Jones’ intriguing
set design. Lourdes Perez and Annette D’Armota provide unremarkable music.
“The works of an American contemporary theater,” proclaims Laurie Carlos in the
playbill, “are in the stories of its poets and spoken-word slingers.” Possibly.
If so, the genre will still need a vast overhaul to be worth the time and energy it takes
up. Otherwise it will remain glutted with such articifice as “Con Flama.”
Additionally, since the demise of the Negro Ensemble Company and the recent downfall of
Crossroads Theatre, Penumbra Theatre Company now stands as the nation’s only
full-season venue for African American theatre. For it to be a first-rate institution, Lou
Bellamy is going to have to stop throwing darts at a board, pulling names out of a hat or
indulging whatever process of script selection he currently employs and develop as
consistently sharp an eye for scripts as he has for acting talent. pulse
“Con Flama” by Sharon Bridgforth runs at Penumbra Theatre, 270 North
Kent Street, St. Paul, through March 3rd, Wednesday through Sunday. Tickets are $21 and
$26. The box office telephone number is 651-234-3180. The online address is
www.penumbratheatre.org. |
verywhere. Women
who were abused as children often turn to prostitution as a means of survival, and they
become the prey of every sadist, pervert and self-righteous bigot who wants to feel
superior to another human being. And the legal system protects the men and attacks the
women. And prostitutes continue to be killed with regularity.