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Tuesday, October 16, 2007 (SF Chronicle)
REVIEW/Spare and affecting, 'Bluest Eye' mines the depths of racism
Robert Hurwitt, Chronicle Theater Critic
The Bluest Eye: Drama. By Lydia R. Diamond, adapted from the novel by Toni Morrison. Directed by Walter Dallas. (Through Nov. 11. Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, 620 Sutter St., San Francisco. One hour, 45 minutes. Tickets $22-$36. Call (415) 474-8800 or visit www.lhtsf.org.)
It isn't every weekend that stage adaptations of novels by Pulitzer
Prize-winning authors open back-to-back in San Francisco. It's still rarer when the novels are landmarks of African American literature by two of the nation's most prominent female writers. In this case, the less prominent and more simply staged production packs the greater dramatic punch. Lydia R. Diamond's dramatization of Toni Morrison's "The Bluest Eye"
opened Saturday at Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, the night after the big Broadway musical version of Alice Walker's "The Color Purple" opened at the Orpheum. Both stories deal with the effects of external andinternalized racism and the cult of beauty on young black girls - bothcentral character abused and impregnated by her real or foster father. But it doesn't pay to carry the comparison too far.
Colorful titles aside, the novels are very different in scope, style,
structure and impact - though equally difficult to adapt. Marsha Norman's attempt to cover the scope of Walker's sprawling "Purple" (reviewed Monday) diffuses and dilutes it. Diamond's dramatization of the more concentrated "Bluest" distills and intensifies Morrison's themes,
characters and vital prose. In Walter Dallas' spare, minimalist
story-theater staging, the Hansberry West Coast premiere is clear,
focused, funny, terrifying and deeply affecting.
"Bluest" has had a number of stagings since its '05 premiere at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre (with at least three more in the works). Dallas, a major figure in African American theater for several decades, has already directed it twice - in Detroit and at Philadelphia's New Freedom Theatre, where he is artistic director.
He sets the bar audaciously high at the outset, with a moving Nina Simonerecording of Rodgers and Hart's "Little Girl Blue." The stage is bare.
Time and place (circa 1940 in the industrial Ohio town of Lorain), scene and story are completely in the hands of the eight-person cast, with the help of Allen Hurtt's few, evocative props (the use of blond dolls is wonderfully inventive), Rose Plant's savvy costumes and dramatic lighting (Matthew Royce) and sound (David Molina) effects.
Shanique S. Scott is as engaging as 12-year-old Pecola Breedlove as her self-abasing obsession with Shirley Temple cuteness is unsettling. The darkness of her skin underscored by a white smock, Scott erases her natural beauty with a downcast mien that hunches in upon itself as Pecola tries to become invisible until her prayers for blue eyes are answered. A wondering, observant Carla Punch and beguiling Nicole Harley anchor the show as Morrison's young sister narrators Claudia and Frieda, in smooth segues between the grown women looking back on the tale and the playful, acute children they were. Diamond wisely downplays the novel's disturbing amount of violence in the sisters' home to contrast it with the
Breedloves' self-inflicted "ugliness." Clara McDaniel's tough-talking Mama and Vernon D. Medearis' didactic Daddy create a stable, loving home. Tamiyka White's imposing, fiercely focused Mrs. Breedlove and Kieleil DeLeon's comic but ominously drunken Cholly establish the self-hatred from which Pecola's tragedy springs. Natasha E. Nöel is blithely effective as an envied, resented light-skinned classmate, and Medearis is increasingly compelling as fortune-teller Soaphead Church. Dallas subtly builds the dramatic impact of Diamond's skillful
interweaving of the novel's several points of view. The actors touch only in affectionate moments. The violence is rigorously stylized in a sharp choreography that evolves from comic to chilling effect. Deleon's nuanced portrait of Cholly gives it added force. The empathy he generates, as we see how he was shaped by an abandoned childhood and white racism, deepens the tragic resonance of the strikingly staged, heartrending climactic rape scene.
It's a potent season opener for the Hansberry at a crucial moment. With the probable loss of its home threatening the rest of its 27th season,
Artistic Director Stanley E. Williams told the opening-night crowd that the situation may soon be resolved. The result of the Hansberry's
negotiations with the Academy of Art University, which is purchasing the building, may be announced this week.
E-mail Robert Hurwitt at rhurwitt@sfchronicle.com. ----------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 2007 SF Chronicle
An evening of words and music Celebrating the lives of Audre Lorde and Pat Parker Saturday Nov. 3rd in Oakland at the First Congregational Church on 2501 Harrison St 7:30pm
