|
Crumbs From The Table of Joy
By Lynn Nottage
Directed by Chuck Smith
At The Goodman Theatre’s Owen
170 N. Dearborn
Chicago, IL
Call 312- 443- 3800, tickets $10 - $35
Tuesdays thru Thursdays at 7:30 PM
Fridays at 8 PM
Saturdays at 2 & 8 PM
Sundays at 2 & 7:30 PM
Running time 2 hours, 30 minutes
Through June 25, 2006
Goodman’s Crumbs theatrically entertaining despite plot flaws
Lynn Nottage’s ambitious family saga of a Black family’s migration from Florida to Brooklyn in 1950 contains richly crafted characters and an underdeveloped plot that still delivers a theatrical threat. Nottage’s play is so full of colorful characters that she seems to get lost trying to tell each one’s story.
Crumbs From The Table of Joy is a memory play narrated by Ernistine, the 17 year-old who becomes the first member of the Crump family to graduate high school. Set in 1950, Crumbs, early on, his about Godfrey Crump, the grieving husband who finds solace in the teaching of Father Devine, a radio preacher. He moves the family to Brooklyn in search of a better life for his two teenage daughters. We see how life in Brooklyn in a neighborhood where they are the only Black family affects them all.
 |
Nambi E. Kelley’s empathetic Ernestine narrates the play as we see her shyness and her being affected by the neighborhood and her family. She loves and is influenced by movies and her sister Ermina (Bakesta King) who discovers boys, sex and be-bop. The father’s addiction to the cult religion of Father Devine leads to an austere home environment not allowing music on Sundays. When the aunt, Lily Ann Green (Ella Joyce in a commanding, energetic performance) comes to live with the family sparks fly and lifestyles change. The girls learn about communism, drinking and being a free spirit.
Godfrey (John Steven Crowley) is attracted to his dead wife’s sister but resists the temptation as he goes on a binge that leaves him away from the family for several days. He meets and marries a German white woman, Gerte (Karen Janes Woditsch) and returns with her to a stunned family.
Act two finds the story shifting from Godrey and Lily Ann to Gerte and the ramifications of having an interracial marriage in 1950 Brooklyn. The daughters and Lily Ann are cold and unfriendly to Grete. Nottage never gives us enough background on Grete for us to understand her. Eventually, all the women come to a mutual tolerance toward one another.
While the show is rich in strong characters – Godfrey is a likeable man; Lily Ann is a charismatic free-spirit sensual soul and Ernestine is the shy, sensitive and hopeful youth; it gets lost in the details of its own story. Crumbs contains several funny and heartwarming scenes and Lily Ann delivers a strongly realistic take on the liberated Black woman of the 1950 but the stories get lost as Nottage tries in vain to weave too many stories into one play. We thirst for more about Ermina and Gerte and we never see the demise of Lily Ann and what happens to Godfrey when Father Devine’s empire crashes?
I did enjoy Crumbs due to the rich blend of humor and empathetic characters that makes us care what happens to them. Ella Joyce’s Lily Ann was terrific and Nambi E. Kelley’s Ernestine was sincere while John Steven Crowley and Karen Janes Woditsch deliver fine work. Now if Nottage would either cut the 2 hour and 30 minute play or develop them into two separate plays with a more coherent storyline, she’d have a masterwork on her hands. Still there is much to like in the dramatically theatrical work that director Chuck Smith smoothly presents on the stunning set (by Linda Buchanan). Smith moves the story along nicely never letting the pace fall short. The use of the device: “At least...I wish she had done that,” to dramatize Ernestine’s wishes that were played out on stage by various characters essentially worked. Crumbs From the Table of Joy is a sophisticated play depicting an era that few of us know about nor appreciate.
Recommended
Tom Williams
Tom99@chicagocritic.com for comments
Talk Theatre in Chicago podcast
Date Reviewed: June 6, 2006
|
