Theater review by Raven Snook
Inua Ellams merges cultures, epochs and locales in his poem-play The Half-God of Rainfall, a mash-up of Greek and Yoruba myths. The ethereal Modúpé (a searing Jennifer Mogbock) is protected from men by river goddess Osún (Patrice Johnson Chevannes), but serial rapist Zeus (a skeevy Michael Laurence) violates her—and sires the part-divinity of the title. As an adolescent, Demi (a regal Mister Fitzgerald) causes flooding when he cries, prompting his peers to shun him. But when they discover he can also make it rain on the basketball court, he becomes a local legend and ascends to the NBA, to the chagrin of his deadbeat deity dad.
Under Taibi Magar's assiduous direction, a talented cast of seven works hard to activate this imaginative but inscrutable tale, which is often relayed in long passages of narration delivered directly to the audience. There are striking moments: Modúpé's recollection of her sexual assault is harrowing, Demi's revealing encounter with another b-ball great is hilarious, and a late-in-the-game deluge is breathtaking. Orlando Pabotoy's inventive movement and Linda Cho's smart costumes cleverly delineate the divide between Africa and the West throughout.
Yet The Half-God of Rainfall is challenging to follow: Ellams' lyrical epic is easier to parse on the page than the stage. It is many, perhaps too many, fables in one—an immigrant's journey, a woman's revenge, an indictment of male monsters on earth and in the heavens, an interrogation of whom we worship and why—and much of it is precipitated by violence. Tellingly, Demi learns basketball strategy from The Art of War and ends up playing for the Golden Gate Warriors. Brutality has shaped so much of human history and storytelling. Perhaps it's time to change what we centralize.
The Half-God of Rainfall. New York Theatre Workshop (Off Broadway). By Inua Ellams. Directed by Taibi Magar. With Jennifer Mogbock, Patrice Johnson Chevannes, Michael Laurence, Mister Fitzgerald. Running time: 1hr 35mins. No intermission.
The Half-God of Rainfall | Photograph: Courtesy Joan Marcus