Knock Me a Kiss

Reviewed by Paul Birchall

“Now you watch this play,” the mother sternly admonished her little daughter sitting in the row behind me at Charles Smith’s romantic drama taking place during the Harlem Renaissance.  “It’ll be good for you to learn something about history!”

Was there ever a more dire yoke to fasten onto the back of some poor play than to be both relevant and educational? In fact, Smith’s play, which depicts a romantic fracas in the household of 20^th century intellectual and activist W.E.B. Du Bois, occasionally buckles under the weight of being self-consciously “important.” Yes, the show often feels educational in the way a lecture about black history and culture might be, imbued with a seriousness that imposes a mandate that no one is to leave the show in any way amused.

Smith’s romance is a quite traditional love triangle melodrama. There’s a lovely lady who is torn between two lovers – nothing special. What gives the work its heft is its Harlem Renaissance trappings, as well as an unusual subplot that justifies the reasons the heroine chooses an unhappy marriage over her heart.

In 1928 Harlem, while Du Bois (Ben Guillory) is touring the country advocating for civil rights, his lively, free spirited daughter Yolande (Toyin Moses) is spending her nights tripping the dance-floor-fantastic with sexy jazz bandleader Jimmy Lunceford (Keir Thirus), who simmers with the testosterone and sensuality that scream “he’s bad news.” When Yolande’s father returns home, he has in mind for her to marry prissy local poet Countee Cullen (Jason Mimms). Cullen talks a good talk, but it doesn’t take a poetry degree to quickly spot he’s more interested in his male best friend than in Yolande. Du Bois nevertheless presses Yolande to ditch her Jimmy and wed Cullen – worrying more about his family’s reputation than their happiness.

Smith’s play skillfully hints at the curse implicit within the idea of “being an example” to others, and there’s a genuine sense of tragedy in the notion that these characters are crucified to their reputations. Moses’ beautifully identifiable Yolande champs against the bridle of being forced to choose a “suitable” mate, as opposed to the un-presentable man she is really attracted to. Unfortunately, however, director Dwain A. Perry’s stodgy production provides few sparks between the love triangle’s cornices. Mimms’ Cullen is suitably prissy and brittle – so much that you wonder why Yolande would be fooled by him for a moment – but Thirus’s Jimmy is somehow too hesitant and passive in the part.

Even though Moses’ nicely-vulnerable Yolande is the show’s lead, all characters orbit around Guillory’s blustery turn as Du Bois. It is unfortunate that Smith’s writing is unable to convey the man’s genius. Instead, he’s depicted as a boorish bully, harrumphing around the stage and browbeating his daughter into doing something she really doesn’t want to do. Yes, the character’s ambitiousness and idealism is at the root of his behavior, but he’s portrayed as every grumpy dad you’ve ever seen in a romantic comedy: The flimsiness of the figure is dismaying. But more of an issue is how the show strives to coast on its “worthiness” without generating any dramatic urgency; it’s an educational, but scarcely involving production.

Robey Theatre Comapny at Los Angeles Theatre Center, 514 S. Spring St., Los Angeles.  Thurs.- Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 3 p.m.; through May 4.  (866) 811-4111.  www.thelatc.org.