Sheaun McKinney and Alani iLongwe (Photo by Jeff Lorch)
Reviewed by F. Kathleen Foley
Audrey Skirball Kenis Theater at Geffen Playhouse
Through September 8
RECOMMENDED
The characters in The Brothers Size, Tarell Alvin McCraney’s play, now at the Geffen’s Audrey Skirball Kenis Theater, derive from West African Yoruba tradition. There’s Oshoosi, who is, in Yoruba lore, a hunter god who roams the forests in search of food. Then there’s Ogun, the Yoruba god of iron and war, who sticks to his forge in grinding labor. And of course, there must be a trickster — Elegba — who delights in creating chaos and upending expectations, often to tragic effect.
McCraney, who shared the adapted screenplay Oscar for the 2016 film Moonlight, based on his play, began his tenure as the artistic director at the Geffen Playhouse a year ago. He now puts the definitive stamp on his directorship with the season opener of The Brothers Size, another of his plays, which he wrote some 20 years ago while still a student at the Yale School of Drama. The second offering in his well-regarded Brother/Sister trilogy, Size established his reputation as an up-and-coming theatrical force.
In a seemingly modest yet wily move, McCraney has elected to mount the play in the Geffen’s small and intimate Audrey Skirball Kenis Theater. It proves the ideal venue for this intensely personal dreamscape, in which the mysticism of Yoruba traditions and the harsh reality of present-day racism intersect.
In a masterly staging, director Bijan Sheibani strikes a balance between the everyday and the illusory, interspersing the action with dance sequences rendered by the performers in meditative precision. (Juel D. Lane choreographed.) Composer and sound designer Stan Mathabane contributes essential live music, most notably driving percussion on indigenous West African instruments that lends to the air of exhilaration— or alternately, dread.
The cannily adapted setting is a backwater bayou, just up the road from Mexico, where the brothers, Ogun Size (Sheaun McKinney) and his younger sibling Oshoosi (Alani iLongwe) struggle to make ends meet. Ogun, the hard-working owner of a local auto shop, and Oshoosi, who has almost miraculously kept his sunny disposition intact after a stretch in prison, seem strikingly antithetical in nature. The demanding taskmaster, Ogun forces Oshoosi to work in his shop as a condition of his parole, while Oshoosi prefers to lounge in bed and fantasize about women and cars. The brothers constantly clash, until subsequent events, triggered by Oshoosi’s former prison mate Elegba (Malcolm Mays) uncover the deep and loving bond between them.
The cast is authoritative. McKinney’s harsh and unbending stoicism beautifully sets up the big reveal—namely, that Ogun has dedicated his life to protecting his brother ever since they were orphaned in early childhood. Ogun’s real conflict is with Elegba, the manipulative seducer who baits Oshoosi with false friendship and gifts — in particular, the fervently desired car that features so prominently in catastrophe.
Mays underplays Elegba to a turn. Elegba’s sexual advances to Oshoosi are initially so subdued that we wonder at the degree and depth of their actual relationship. We are also left wondering whether Elegba is an agent of darkness or simply an engine of fate sent to prompt destiny — a Henry Jamesian ambivalence that highlights McCraney’s subtle storytelling craft.
However, it is iLongwe’s childlike effervescence as Oshoosi that’s particularly heartbreaking. Despite the buffetings of fate, Oshoosi remains triumphantly kind — a kindness largely unsullied by challenging circumstances. His inspirational resilience in the teeth of an unfair life is the real lesson at the center of McCraney’s surprisingly uplifting play.
Audrey Skirball Kenis Theater at Geffen Playhouse,10886 Le Conte Ave., Los Angeles. Wed.-Fri., 8 p.m.; Sat., 3 and 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 and 7 p.m., thru Sept. 8. (310) 208-2028. www.geffenplayhouse.org Running time: 90 minutes, no intermission.
