Scraps
Reviewed by Deborah Klugman
The Matrix Theatre Company
Through September 15
RECOMMENDED:
Geraldine Inoa’s incisive character-rich drama, directed by Stevie Walker-Webb at the Matrix Theatre, examines the impact of institutional racism on a group of young people in the aftermath of their friend’s murder by police. The off-beat title is a reference to the origin of African-American soul food, prepared by slaves from the scraps their “owners” left for them after they took all the good parts for themselves. This bit of information is relayed by one 19-year-old character to her 20-year-old neighbor as they perch on the stoop of their dilapidated apartment building in Bedford Stuyvesant on a hot summer day.
The play’s seminal event is the shooting death of a young black man, Forest Winthrop, as he jogged through the neighborhood late one night. This takes place some three months before the play begins. The people on the stoop are his friends: Adrianna (Ashlee Olivia), a student at NYU, and Jean-Baptiste (Tyrin Niles), a dropout who sniffs at getting his GED, but when he finds a copy of James Joyce’s The Dubliners on the street, he buries himself in its pages every chance he gets. It bears mention that Jean-Baptiste is a rapper who likes his weed and has big dreams of success.
The person most impacted by Forest’s death, however, is Adrianna’s sister Aisha (Denise Yolén), who was Forest’s long-time girlfriend and who is now a single mother raising their son. The voluble and highly opinionated Aisha works a low paying job in a dollar store to pay the rent. She’d had dreams of a better life after Forest won a football scholarship to Florida State, picturing his bright future in the NFL with herself on his arm. But those hopes died with him, and she’s angry as much with him for being in the wrong place at the wrong time as she is with the cop who shot him dead.
A fourth character, Calvin (Akhei Togun), attends Columbia and was on a study trip in London when Forest died so he missed the funeral. His tardy return — and the fact that he had a fling with Aisha while she was with Forest — generates resentment from Jean-Baptiste and mixed feelings from Aisha herself. Calvin wants the two of them to be together, but Aisha isn’t so sure and lets him know it with her skewering tongue.
The fifth character, Sebastian (adult actor Damon Rutledge), doesn’t appear until two-thirds of the way through the play, after it veers sharply from naturalist drama into the surreal nightmares of an 8-year-old tormented by the loss of his father.
One of the play’s primary strengths is how cogently Inoa weaves themes of social oppression into her characters’ sentiments and passions (rather than beating you over the head with a message as less skilled writers do). Her story isn’t only about grief but about the way societal expectations affect people’s lives, even their most intimate bonds and friendships. It’s embedded in the smart and sometimes gritty street dialogue (though some of the monologues, especially Aisha’s, run a bit long before the story moves ahead). It’s made crystal clear in a tense scene where a white cop (Stan Mayer) shows up; suddenly, the caviling among these four young people of color halts and they freeze, conscious that this man’s mere presence is a threat to their lives.
In the second “act” (so designated although the play is performed without an intermission), the tech shines. On a dark stage, a striking conjunction of lighting (Brian Gale and Zo Haynes) and sound (Jeff Gardner) conjures Sebastian’s nightmare world, while the other actors channel the specters that haunt him. But the sequence, in which the playwright strives (and succeeds) in communicating how violent racist acts are perpetuated on children, goes on too long and would be more effective if pruned.
As to the performances, Yolén is all fire and ice as the take-no-prisoners Aisha, someone you wouldn’t want to cross swords with but who is also brutally honest and prepared to do what’s necessary to support her child. The spotlight is hers to steal.
Adrianna’s Olivia is more cerebral, precariously high-strung and plain in her dress, but just as passionate and expressive. Meanwhile in a test of acting, Rutledge meets the challenge of a grownup actor playing a little boy who hears voices that taunt and upbraid him. Niles captures Jean-Baptiste’s disaffection and intelligence. Togun gives a capable performance but I thought his Calvin — the guy who did make it out of the ghetto — needed more sophistication and polish.
Scraps is Inoa’s first play, but not her first professional effort. She’s also a writer and story editor for The Walking Dead, the AMC series about people struggling to survive in the wild after a zombie apocalypse. That puts it a long way from Bedford Stuy, yet the two scenarios share a grim landscape, one in which hope and the celebration of life for its own sake are precious things.
The Matrix Theatre, 7657 Melrose Ave., West Hollywood; Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 3 p.m.; Mon., 8 p.m.; through Sep. 15. (323) 852-1445 or www.matrixtheatre.com. Running time: approximately 90 minutes with no intermission.
