If there's one thing that playwright Cheryl L. West doesn't worry about when writing a play, it is finding conflict within a family. When Black Theatre Troupe presented her play Before It Hits Home, an African American family was torn apart by a son's admission to being HIV-positive. In Jar The Floor, West concentrates on four generations of black women, but adds nearly a baker's dozen of issues with which they must contend. The result is a psychological and occasionally physical battle that touches on a host of problems faced by women of all ages and colors, but as is the case of a play that attempts to be comprehensive, complications are muddy and resolutions are forced. Even with the sure hand of Anthony Runfola directing a solid cast, Jar the Floor is a production that you survive. While there is some very good comedic material mostly touching on the similarity between daughters and granddaughters, there are approximately fifteen rounds of pitched battle and horrific revelation that become a catalogue of abuse and misunderstanding. This is a production where the audience can both laugh at remembered lines and show their myriad of battle scars as they leave.
At senile matriarch MaDear's 90th birthday party, her daughter Lola, granddaughter MayDee, great granddaughter Vennie, and Vennie's white friend Raisa trade witty barbs and rip open old wounds as they try to find some kind of connection with each other. Each of the topics tossed into the salad of this script could be given a two-hour production on their own. In this melee we have sexual abuse, the tyranny of men, single and absentee parenting, divorce, teenage pregnancy, abortion, the struggle to break the glass ceiling, robbing the cradle, breast cancer, Alzheimer's, and lesbianism. I've definitely missed a few other topics, though these are the most immediate. The tens of minutes that comprise the climax are like a litany of all wrongs done to black women. While all are worthy of mention, as each revelation is topped by another, even more horrible admission, the audience wonders if the women are a group of biblical Jobs, or if they are for having to deal with yet another sympathy-grinding experience.
Runfola has done what he can to maneuver the show through treacherous shoals. The pacing is snappy, led by Fanta El Shabazz as the hot grandma in denial of her age. Representing the generation of struggle and Civil Rights, El Shabazz plays her foul-mouthed, sexually charged character with abandon. The fight scenes tend to be statically staged, although there are so many, it's must've been hard to think of an original stage picture for each after awhile. Balancing El Shabazz is Elaine Bardwell as the post civil right's generation bred MayDee, who is praying for tenure by her university's African American Studies department. Bardwell is inconsistent, taking the lead at some points, and becoming hesitant at others. Representing the youngest generation, Sapphire King is more consistent, and strong when accusing her mother of never trying to understand her dream. Interloper Raisa was initially played awfully by Athena Hagerty, as she entered near the end of the first act and spoke her lines oddly, but in the middle of the second act, her interaction with MaDear and a very funny short monologue highlighting the similarity of problems between cultures resurrected her performance, and she maintained the positive elements for the remainder of the show.
On the opening Saturday night, the show was delayed by ten minutes, explained by the sudden necessity to place an understudy in the role of Depression-era MaDear, as Joyce Gittoes was hospitalized earlier in the evening. For a last minute replacement, Assistant Director Carolyn Parsons did an excellent job of portraying a character much older than she without the aid of an onstage script.
Thom Gilseth's set is effective, as is Michael Eddy's lighting. Carol Simmons' costumes are all very well considered.
By the end of the show, I felt exactly the same way I did when I finished viewing The Joy Luck Club. I felt simply awful for the women and the evils that were visited upon them, but I didn't quite get it. I felt sympathy, but not empathy. I was too overwhelmed to embrace the offering and its many messages. There will assuredly be some plot twist with which every member of the audience can commiserate, but as in life, there are no easy answers. In the end, everyone, audience members as well as characters, become victims of this play. This is a very good presentation of a soul-twisting script.
Production Details:
Jar the Floor by Cheryl L.
West
Black Theatre Troupe
The Helen K. Mason Center for the Performing Arts, Phoenix (For a map to this location, click here)
(602) 258-8128
March 28th - April 14th, 2002