There’s a nasty rumor going
about, spead by a number of critics who should (I think) know better, that Stick
Fly by Lydia
R. Diamond is something like a soap opera.
It
is in fact nothing of the kind.
Soap
operas tend to traffic in melodrama, lack of subtext (notwithstanding the
villains with ulterior motives, though that tends to be unambiguously perceived
by the audience too. And the collisions and juxtapositions of multiple
storylines tend to be about effect rather than purpose.
Whereas
there is yet another classification to which Stick Fly belongs—as yet unnamed, but I’m making it
up—that is much more accurate. I call it The Overstuffed Pie. Which I
mean affectionately, rather than a pejorative.
As
the designation would indicate, the Overstuffed Pie is rich with story and
character. A lot of plot threads converge upon a building catharsis. Broadly
defined characters (not un-nuanced, but not subtle) and big revelations are
ingredients too. Now: where does the Pie differ from the Soap?
First
of all, it has a near-constant sense of irony. Second of all, it has a
near-constant sense of humor. Third, it’s a not-very-distant cousin of farce.
It’s well aware that it’s concentrating events into a contained frame in a
heightened manner—but its mandate is to take the notion of exploring
different aspects of a single theme by assigning each not only a character, but
a subplot. (And in most cases a pair of characters is involved, since plot
doesn’t occur in a vacuum.) And the collision of everything is the ultimate
illustration of the thesis.
There
aren’t many really good Overstuffed Pies around, but they make for
edge-of-the-seat viewing, when they’re done right. Lorraine Hansbury’s The
Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window is one. Another is the Valerie Curtin/Barry Levinson
screenplay for …and Justice for All.
And
now there’s Stick Fly.
Ostensibly
it’s a portrait of well-to-do African Americans. At the center are the LeVay
family—we’re in their large, rambling Martha’s Vineyard home, and the
grown LeVay “boys” have come for the weekend; doctor and playboy Flip, aka
Harold (Mekhi Phifer), and his new
lady-friend, a Caucasian teacher named Kimber (Rosie Benton); aspiring and soon-to-be-published novelist Spoon,
aka Kent (Dulé Hill), and his ladylove
Taylor (Tracie Thomas); the
young 2nd generation servant and housekeeper, college age Cheryl (Condola
Rashad)—and finally, the patriarch,
another successful doctor, Joe LeVay (Ruben Santiago-Hudson).
Much
has been made in the press of how “predictably” the story threads intersect,
which seems odd to me because clearly Ms. Diamond wants you to see some of the revelations coming, because why else would she
set certain cross-paths in motion. There’s an unexpected prior relationship
among the group…of course it will be discovered…what’s at issue is how and with
what consequence. There’s also a family secret the boys don’t know. But it’s
related to why their mother isn’t here this weekend. And of course that
will come to light; what’s at issue there
is its ultimate meaning within the strong bond of family, and how it affects
the definition of family (and
more on that in a minute). There’s a difference between structure that’s neat
and structure that’s schematic, and Ms. Diamond’s, in every good sense of the
word (including colloquial) is neat.
In
an intriguing way, one might well think of Stick Fly as a fulfillment of the legacy established by
Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun. That one was the first mainstream “primer” on the black experience in Eastern,
urban America—the working class black experience of the late 50s and
early 60s, with the Younger family struggling financially and dealing with
thinly veiled bigotry as a mostly-white community they hope to move into tries
to buy them off in an effort to keep the neighborhood “pure.” And, in keeping
with variations on a unifying theme, each black character represented a
real-life archetype white America needed to understand.
Stick
Fly, though, deals with a family that has
achieved the mainstream dream. Educated, moneyed, accepted both professionally
and in the neighborhood (the wealthy neighborhood at that; the program note specifies that wherever we are
in Martha’s Vineyard, it is not Oak
Bluffs). And—in this play, with these characters, on this weekend—what’s
being examined are not issues of race
(and in particular race contrasted against race) so much as issues of
culture within a race; the race’s
perception of itself, without the
measuring stick of white society’s perception, which for these characters has
been rendered a side issue. And the archetypes here aren’t social archetypes or
“black family” archetypes, they’re any family archetypes, but ones that play out their functions
within the environment of African American success. And in Stick Fly they aren’t fighting for their place in society;
they’re fighting for (or struggling with) their level of acceptance in the
hierarchy of family. What defines standards of decorum, accomplishment and
responsibility for blood relation? What’s required to join the family as a
romantic partner? At what point does domestic help attain honorary “you’re
family” status?
These
are hot issues, uniquely explored here, in a play that strikes me as not only
terrific and terrifically entertaining (the audience response does not lie, and
I’ve seen the show twice now), and terrifically important.
Kenny
Leon has skillfully, smoothly and with
terrific timing directed one of the best and most iconic straight play casts
Broadway has seen in a long time (by which I mean there’s a lot of “role
ownership” here; each actor has put his or her brand on the part being played).
The work of the design team is likewise sharp, in particular the set design by David
Gallo, which employs an original mixture
of symbolic representation (partial, abstractly designed walls that “separate”
the living room, kitchen and back porch from each other while leaving the
action of each open and visible to the audience) and realism (the rooms and
porch themselves).
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