Theater review by Nicole Serratore
The year is 2017. Maxine (Naomi Lorrain) is unemployed and worn out. In a moment of vulnerability, she lets herself be cajoled by her activist friend AJ (Shaunette Renée Wilson) into running for city council in Far Rockaway, where she grew up. That’s the set-up for Bleu Beckford-Burrell’s perceptive new play, La Race, which interweaves issues of friendship, romance and politics with an exploration of the burdens that Black women face in dealing with identity, mental health and the justice system.
As Max works to untangle her beliefs, confront her own lies and deal with her unspoken tensions with AJ, Lorrain subtly flips between Max’s outward mask and the inner pain she struggles to articulate. The people helping Max campaign have travails of their own to deal with. Sweet, God-fearing Uriel (a winsome Auberth Bercy) works multiple jobs with a positive disposition, and the street-smart live wire Dejani (Stacey Sargeant, in a beautifully complex performance) must prove to a family court that she’s responsible enough to have custody of her kids. When she faces a serious setback, it’s agonizing to watch her protective self-confidence drain away.
Taylor Reynolds’s direction helps enrich the character dynamics. Some of the romcom beats are clunky (a romantic partner is more smarm than charm), and Max’s conflict with AJ does not reach the emotional depth it initially promises, but Beckford-Burrell works through the issues she raises carefully and with an admirable sense of Far Rockaway specificity. (Arnulfo Maldonado’s verité set of Max and AJ’s apartment, an aged space brightened with stylish mid-century modern items, adds to the sense of place—though a bougie neighborhood coffee shop does not quite read like the over-the-top hipster spot the characters take it to be.) And if a few plot elements seem telegraphed—everyone has a secret that is bound to come out—that may be purposeful: Max and the others cannot always see what is right in front of them. Despite a few missteps, the play’s skillful writing and acting make it easy to root for these women as they race, with occasional stumbles of their own, toward new futures.
La Race. McGinn/Cazale Theater (Off Broadway). By Bleu Beckford-Burrell. Directed by Taylor Reynolds. With Auberth Bercy, Naomi Lorrain, Vince Nappo, Christopher B. Portley, Stacy Sargeant, Shaunette Renée Wilson. Running time: 2hrs 15mins. One intermission.
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