Yellowman

I had the privilege this afternoon of seeing my friend, Rachel Christopher, in Trinity Rep's production of Yellowman.  She plays opposite Joe Wilson in an overwhelming hour and a half of theater about the nexus of color, gender and class within a 1960's Southern Black community.  The play is shattering most of all in the absence of overt white racism: this is about how the legacy of prejudice, slavery and poverty infects a community until it devours itself.  How a cast of two can sustain an audience through such a painful and taxing drama is beyond me, but I certainly know that this was true virtuosity.

For me, the musicality of the dialogue (really, closer to monologue) is irresistible.  Throughout, the actors repeat permutations of their lines that highlight the cadences of southern oratory, gospel and blues traditions.  As Eugene and Alma (Joe and Rachel, respectively) slip from their own characters voices into the Gullah accents of their parents and grandparents, each character-within-character becomes a rhythm of it's own, and the director highlights this at times by playing the actor's voices on tape behind their continuing dialogue.  Later in the play, after Alma escapes South Carolina and moves to New York, she carries us through the city in the clicking of her newly-beloved high heels, making her walk (and her words) into a dance, a beating drum. Music becomes a backdrop, an simple necessity for the play - as Eugene asks, "Is there anything beyond church music and blues?"