Michael A. Shepperd and Robert Cornelius (Lore Photography)
Reviewed by Philip Brandes
Rubicon Theatre Company
Through February 2.
RECOMMENDED
The close-knit familiarity among the regulars at a local diner keeps Two Trains Running firmly on the rails in a mesmerizing co-production that launches New York-based The Acting Company’s latest national tour, with its first whistle stop at Ventura’s Rubicon Theatre.
August Wilson’s portrait of resilience amid societal turbulence and urban decay celebrates a spirit of neighborhood camaraderie reminiscent of TV’s Cheers — with less cheer, perhaps, but with a surprising amount of humor and good will nevertheless.
Like most of Wilson’s epic ten-play Pittsburgh Cycle chronicling Black American life in the 20th Century, this seventh chapter is set in the city’s impoverished Hill District where the playwright grew up. The time is 1969, at the tail end of the Civil Rights Movement whose aftermath Wilson (then in his twenties) witnessed first-hand.
Drawn from personal experience, the play’s characters are penned with remarkable specificity even by Wilson’s exacting standards. Director Lili-Anne Brown and her seamless ensemble bring them vividly to life in every detail — their passions, fears, dreams, and uncertainties manifest in every gesture, inflection, and bantering cadences of their street vernacular.
L.A. veteran actor and director Michael A. Shepperd anchors the piece as Memphis, the self-made owner of the modest diner that has long served as a community gathering place. Facing a declining business and looming cultural assault from impending gentrification, Memphis wages an uphill battle to leverage as much as he can for his property from city bureaucrats, who are gobbling up the neighborhood under eminent domain.
Memphis’s diner has seen better days — its three-entrée menu now fits on a blackboard — but a meticulous period scenic design by Tanya Orellana reflects his continued maintenance care and pride of ownership. Memphis and his guardedly private waitress-cook Risa (DeAnna Supplee) feed, cajole and at times confront the local patrons who pop in and out, each with their unique personalities and back stories: local numbers-runner Wolf (J’Laney Allen), philosophical old-timer Holloway (Brian D. Coats), recently paroled Sterling (James Milord), and mentally challenged Hambone (Chuckie Benson).
While larger political events are acknowledged in conversational reference (Black Power protests, the assassinations of Malcom X and Martin Luther King), they remain a backdrop. What most distinguishes Two Trains Running among Wilson’s plays is its deliberate lack of buildup to highly dramatic climaxes — the tragedies and victories here occur in the course of everyday life. Such is the mature playwright’s confidence in his compelling characters and their stories, confidence fully validated in these superb performances. (The ensemble’s versatility was further demonstrated in this tour’s companion repertory piece, a hilariously frantic 90-minute modern language “translation” of Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors by Christina Anderson rendered in rhyming pentameter; intended primarily for local school performances, its three public shows were sold out in advance).
While the Southland has seen several fine productions of Two Trains Running over the years, what makes this one so timely and heartbreaking is seeing it amid the relentless — almost gleeful—rollback of whatever progress in racial equality made since the Civil Rights movement. It’s a fragility Wilson clearly foreshadowed in Memphis’s skeptical caution about taking freedom for granted: “Freedom is heavy. You got to put your shoulder to freedom. Put your shoulder to it and hope your back hold up.”
Rubicon Theatre Company presented in collaboration with The Acting Company of New York , 1006 E. Main St., Ventura. Wed., 2 and 7 pm, Fri., 7 pm, Sat., 2 and 7 pm, Sun., 2 pm. www.rubicontheatre.org; Running time: 3 hours, 5 minutes with intermission.
