25598762
In the Blood
The People’s Light and Theatre Company
39 Conestoga Road, Malvern
Through Feb. 9
Tickets: $25-$38
610-644-3500
�
In 1989 at age 26, In the Blood author Suzan-Lori Parks was dubbed "the most promising playwright" by the New York Times. Since then, her work has drawn prestigious support. She won Obies for her off-Broadway plays in 1990 and 1996. In 2002, she became the first African-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for drama with her play Topdog/Underdog.
In 1999, Parks earned a Pulitzer nomination for In the Blood, a captivating portrait of a young black woman in the ghetto, now on stage at The People’s Light and Theatre Company.
"My life’s my own fault. I know that. But the world don’t help," says Hester, the mother of five children.
"The world’s not here to help us. The world is simply here. We must help ourselves," replies the welfare lady.
In the Blood is a play of stark and confronting realism about the world that is "simply here." It’s about the eternal yearning for love. It’s about those who adapt and those who fall between the cracks, and it is filtered through Parks’ particular vision of black and white stereotypes.
Hester is an unwed mother living in squalor with her five kids in an unnamed city. It could be New York or any other city. Ranging in age from 13 to 2, each child has a different father. Hester struggles and hustles every day, against monumental odds, to "get a leg up," as she puts it.
Embattled on all fronts, she can’t get more welfare money because she won’t turn in her children’s fathers so the welfare agency can put a rock on their checks. Her feckless friends are always dragging her into schemes that cost her money and agency officials take advantage of her essentially good heart and vulnerable position.
None of the characters in the story wants to be part of Hester’s life, but they all want a piece of her. Only her children love her unconditionally, and this leads to the ultimate tragedy of the story.
Where the script deals with Hester’s desperate dreams to rise above her chaotic life, Lewis Folden’s set is the anchor that drags us back to reality. It looks like squalor; there is trash and litter strewn all over the place. It’s an awful, miserable place to be, and that sets the tone for this gripping drama.
Most of the actors play dual roles as Hester’s children and the various adults. Each of the marvelous performers breathes life into his or her role — portraits that have lasting effects on the viewer.
Robert Beatty, who plays her oldest son, Jabber, trying to teach his mother to read — she hasn’t progressed past the letter A — also plays Jabber’s father, Chilli, Hester’s "first." This character returns briefly in the second half of the play and momentarily seems to be her salvation, but flees when he meets the other four children.
The second child, Bully, constantly squabbling with Jabber, is brilliantly played by Cathy Simpson. This powerful actress also appears as a smug social worker who proves to be an equal-opportunity exploiter.
Amanda Gringa (Mary Elizabeth Scallen), the prostitute with a taste for capitalistic enterprise, explains: "I had me some delicious schemes to get her out of that hole she calls home." Though she cajoled Hester to put on a sexual peep show for profit with her, Amanda is still faced with the fact that a "woman like Hester driving her life all over the road most often chooses to walk the straight and narrow."
Peter DeLaurier plays the middle child, Trouble, whose theft of a nightstick that his mother carries for the rest of the play foreshadows the end. DeLaurier does a curious turn as a harried sidewalk physician ministering to the indigent where they hang out.
The reverend (Larry Grant Malvern) is the father of Hester’s last child but now wants her out of his face so he can get on with his thriving new ministry. Like the social worker, he uses his power destructively. His riff is "Suffering is an enormous turn on/She had four kids and came to me asking me what to do/She had a look in her eyes that invites liaisons/Eyes that say red spandex."
And then there’s Roslyn Ruff, who embodies Hester’s hunger and despair with a passion that draws the audience in at every turn. Ruff’s remarkable performance steadily builds toward a stunning finish. The ensemble does great work playing her children as well as the adult characters. It is realism served up raw with acting that is first-class.
