[ssba]

Forever

Reviewed by Paul Birchall

Kirk Douglas Theatre

Through Oct. 26.

RECOMMENDED:

If you’re going to write your memoirs, you need a story worth telling – and if you’re going to perform them, you need to find the emotional center to your life story that will translate to your audience.  Fortunately, in her compelling solo monologue, playwright-poet Dael Orlandersmith presents a evocative performance that’s both a gripping autobiography and also a searing description of the pain and suffering that can either destroy or give rise to transcendent art.  Here’s a play that works on the level of description of personal pain and loss, while also hinting at the occasional irrationality of our own feelings and reactions. 

Orlandersmith’s monologue opens with her description of a visit to the Paris’s Pere Lachaise Cemetery, and a tour that takes her to the graves of la grande et la bonne.  She doffs her hat to Oscar Wilde and Balzac and to Piaf and Proust, before settling down to subversively toast Jim Morrison with a nice glass of whiskey.  It is, frankly, not the most imposing beginning for a narrative, and we momentarily fear that this is going to be a presentation of self-aggrandizing name-dropping.  But the names quickly prove to be dropped to make a point of showing the distance Orlandersmith has travelled to make peace with herself and with her past.

Her story takes off as the narrative drifts into a searing rendition of her hardscrabble Harlem childhood. Raised by a ferociously embittered, drunk single mom, who appeared to resent her daughter for not being as damaged as she was, Orlandersmith endured frequent abuse, both physical and psychological, that culminated in a savage rape during a home invasion. Following the rape, the neglectful mom tried to steal both the spotlight and the victim’s righteous grief. It is only after her mother’s eventual death that Orlandersmith was able to make some peace with her past, and to gain a distanced perspective that allows her a sort of forgiveness of her mother’s cruelties. 

In director Neel Keller’s beautifully intimate staging, Orlandersmith addresses us as though we are close friends – but there are reservations here:  As we’re watching her, there’s always a sense that she is watching and judging us, as well – it’s an impression of strength and ferocity that comes across even during her most vulnerable moments.  And while there’s a certain one-sided aspect to many of her declarations – at no point is there any attempt to depict the mother’s side of the story or an explanation for her admittedly monstrous behavior – Orlandersmith essentially bares herself to express the rage, grief and pain that motivate her subsequent art. This is not a play about objective history; it’s about the perceptions (which may be skewed or not) that create the baggage we all carry with us through our lives. 

The monologue also contains elements of a ghost story, not only in the glimpse of a girl spotted in the distance near Morrison’s Paris grave, but also when Orlandersmith expresses her anger — her generally cheerful and affable face adopts a grimness that hints at what her mother must have looked like at her most frustrated. Orlandersmith’s monologue packs a surprising emotional wallop, and powerfully describes the process of transforming fury into art. 

Kirk Douglas Theatre, 9820 Washington Blvd, Culver City; Thurs.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 6:30 p.m.; through Oct. 26. (213) 628-2772, https://centertheatregroup.org/forever.