Stew

Reviewed by Julia Lloyd George
Pasadena Playhouse
Through August 6

RECOMMENDED

The end of Zora Howard’s magnificent Stew lies in its beginning, echoing the eerie circularity that seems irrevocably stitched into all its characters’ lives.

It’s 7 am on Sunday in the Tucker household, but Mama (LisaGay Hamilton) is already getting started on an enormous stew meant to feed 50 people at a church event later that day. An interruption comes in the form of a loud noise from outside the house, which startles and unsettles her. Though it’s only a brief moment, it casts a pall over her typically homey kitchen.

There isn’t much time to dwell on it, though, because her still-sleepy daughters and granddaughter soon arrive from upstairs to help with the stew. Lillian (Roslyn Ruff) and Nelly (Jasmine Ashanti) are sisters that are practically a generation apart, the difference in their ages accentuating the emotional distance between them. Only 17 and incredibly sassy, Nelly is exhausted from the night before with her “man” (more serious than a “boyfriend,” she says).

Lillian, on the other hand, is a grown thirtysomething with a much more existential kind of exhaustion on her plate; she tells Mama that she and her husband, J.R., are “having a hard time”, which is why she’s staying there in the first place. Her pre-teen daughter, Lil’ Mama (Samantha Miller), and absent son, Junior, have come with her. Lil’ Mama obediently fetches groceries and contributes to the cooking, even though she’s anxious for her dad to arrive so that he can help her prepare for a Richard III audition (she wants the role of Queen Elizabeth).

Throughout all this action, witty one-liners (“you know who else was tired? JESUS!”) and teasing banter pass between the Tucker women in the blink of an eye. The play almost has the air of a classic sit-com, with laughs erupting from the theater audience on a regular basis. Tyler Thomas’s direction feels both intricate and seamless, especially as the tone of the play shifts and the façade of cheerful normalcy begins to fall away.

We get the first hints of this fracture when Mama gets deeply invested in Lil’ Mama’s audition and does her best to coach her. Eventually, she delivers a haunting Richard III monologue herself, telling her “young princes” to hear their “mother’s lamentation.” The barely contained well of emotion behind her eyes is undeniable; unable to speak her own words about a past calamity, she expresses her feelings through drama. It’s one of many stand-out moments from the astonishing LisaGay Hamilton, who gently commands one of the strongest ensembles I’ve ever seen.

It also sets the scene for revelations to come — which are both surprises and not surprises at all, since each woman’s past is prologue. Even scenic designer Tanya Orellana’s strategically placed kitchen wall stains foreshadow the conflict. Roslyn Ruff gets her own crowning scene when Lillian pours her heart out to her mother, who eventually responds in kind with confessions about her own regrets. Each woman wonders about the other paths their lives could have taken if only every action didn’t feel so predestined. When tragedy finally intrudes from outside the house, we’re left wondering why we can’t break the cycle ourselves.

Pasadena Playhouse, 39 S El Molino Ave, Pasadena; Wed.-Fri., 8 pm; Sun., 2pm & 7pm; through August 6th. https://www.pasadenaplayhouse.org/. Running time: 90 minutes with no intermission.