brownsville song (b-side for tray). Claire Tow Theater (see Off Broadway). By Kimber Lee. Directed by Patricia McGregor. With ensemble cast. Running time: 1hr 30mins. No intermission.
brownsville song (b-side for tray): In brief
Kimber Lee's drama examines the effect of a teenager's death on his family. Patricia McGregor directs the New York premiere for Lincoln Center's emerging-artist–supportive LCT3 wing.
brownsville song (b-side for tray): Theater review by Helen Shaw
Kimber Lee’s brownsville song (b-side for tray) is an anthem for a boy gunned down in Brooklyn, and as such, it cries out at injustice. It also strikes a blow for righteousness simply by being at LCT3; these stories are too rare uptown or, for that matter, anywhere in the theater. But the celebration is muted by a queasy unfairness in the play itself.
We start with boxer-barista-student Tray (Sheldon Best) already dead. The loss deranges the play’s chronology, sending us back to teasing dinners with his baby sister, Devine (sweet Taliyah Whitaker), and forward into a world without him. And of course, we mourn. But the play spends its length arguing the character was essentially a saint, that his perfection and promise are what make his death a tragedy. “I never taught him that,” murmurs his grandmother (wonderful Lizan Mitchell), shaking her head over his godlike compassion. There are bracing moments throughout, and Best’s charisma breaks the meter, but Lee’s tendency toward the saccharine prevents brownsville from truly singing.—Theater review by Helen Shaw
THE BOTTOM LINE Sentimental overreach plays a false note in this Brooklyn elegy.