Six black men—well, five men and a young boy—share the stage and interlocking lives in Daniel Beaty's Resurrection, the new play currently at Hartford Stage. Each of these sons of the 'hood is confronting the legacies of racism and poverty with spirit and humor, buoyed by a defining ambition. But each of them faces a thorny obstacle, a "but" that stands between him and his dreams.
'Twon (Turron Kofi Alleyne), personable and energetic, has graduated high school with honors and is on his way to college with his sights on a law degree. But his girlfriend has another scenario in mind. 'Twon's older mentor, Isaac (Alvin Keith), who encouraged him to stick with his studies, is a successful music business executive. But he's a closeted gay man who is wary of coming out because "being a black man in America is hard enough." He's also unwilling to confront his father, a conservative preacher known as the Bishop (Jeffery V. Thompson), who heads a megachurch that serves 10,000 souls. But the Bishop is also a self-confessed "addict" whose drug is Ho-Hos—a fatal attraction, since he's also diabetic.
Mr. Rogers (Michael Genet) owns a health-food store, seeking to bring well-being to the community. But the community's staple diet is KFC and soul food and the store is financially precarious. The shopkeeper's 10-year-old son Eric (Thuliso Dingwall) experiments with the recipe for a "special herbal iced tea" remedy, with no less a goal than "finding a cure for the aching hearts of black folk." But he can't seem to concoct the right formula.
Fiery Dre (Che Ayende), recently out of prison for a drug rap and determined to start afresh, works at the herb emporium and becomes a big brother to young Eric. But when he was using, he shared dirty needles, and now both he and his pregnant girlfriend are HIV-positive.
As each of them tells his story to us, the audience, the others gather in the background, chiming in with joky and/or supportive comments. The monologues blend into dialogues and swell into contrapuntal voice poems, one of them a thank-you hymn to their overworked and under-appreciated mothers.
But this play is by and for the men, cutting against the clich? of the absent black husband and father. It's about older men mentoring young men and young ones teaching their elders. The theme of generational interchange is made explicit in the six characters' ages, emblems of life's stepping stones: 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60.
One of Redemption's stylistic roots is in the black church, and the play reverberates with biblical themes. There's the title, of course, and Isaac, who almost becomes a sacrifice to his father's strict faith, and the shimmering back wall of G.W. Mercier's spare set traces the abstract outline of a cross.
Beaty's gritty-poetic script and Oz Scott's angular production take a bit of getting used to. The performances are a little bigger than life, matching the playwright's verbal pyrotechnics and insistent optimism. Eric's dream of inventing a soul-reviving potion may be naive, but that's exactly what Redemption strives for. It's a fervent call for personal and spiritual liberation through courage, compassion, unity and love. There are a few moments of unnecessary melodrama, some awkward plot turns and a rousing but rather forced ending. But if Redemption is occasionally overdone, it comes from an overflowing heart.
Brand:New
Daniel Beaty was the playwright-in-residence at Hartford Stage last season, where his one-man show Emergence-SEE! was featured in the theater's annual festival of new work, Brand:New. This year's installment happens this weekend, with readings of seven new plays, including scripts by Beaty, Regina Taylorr, whose Crowns was a Hartford hit a few seasons back, and Quiara Alegria Hudes, this season's resident playwright and author of the current Broadway hit In the Heights.
The festival's 10th anniversary is celebrated on Monday with a gala fundraiser featuring 10 10-minute plays titled, inevitably, 10/10/10. Beaty and Hudes are represented again, along with a mixed bag of contemporary dramatists, from Edward Albee and Horton Foote to Eve Ensler and Suzan-Lori Parks.
Resurrection plays at Hartford Stage through Nov. 16. The Brand:New festival runs Nov. 6-12. 860-527-5151, www. hartfordstage.org.
