Despite
coming highly touted from the Williamstown Theatre Festival, Broke-ology is a mild and minor family drama. It's not that
author Nathan Louis Jackson is
ungifted—there are native abilities at play: some of the dialogue and
characterization are delivered with sensitivity—nor are the issues
unworthy of dramatization. Check ‘em out:
The
story, featuring a lower-middle income African American family, sets up a
classic dynamic. Dad William King (Wendell Pierce) is suffering from MS and a wonky ticker. His
condition is deteriorating, along with his ability to care for himself, which
becomes the purview of his two grown sons: Ennis (Francois Battiste) the eldest by a year or so, chained to this
Kansas inner city neighborhood by his additional responsibilities to provide
for a wife and baby on a cook’s meager salary; and Malcolm (Alano Miller), a college student with aspirations and a bright
future awaiting him in Connecticut. Ennis can’t care for Pop alone, and Malcolm
can’t pitch in equally without pitching his chances to better himself. And the
situation is becoming more dire, with Dad getting more and more forgetful, even
at times convinced that the spectre of his late wife, the boys’ mother (Crystal
A. Dickinson) is real. No choice
can be made without painful compromise and devastating emotional repercussions,
yet the three men try desperately to hang in and preserve family cohesion and
unity.
Universal,
real subject matter resonant beyond the constraints of the socio-economic and
ethnic setting. Yet with powerful impact within too. Problem is Mr. Jackson
delivers the goods at a rudimentary level. First act exposition is transparent,
as conversation after conversation, bereft of significant conflict, is informed
by backstory reminiscence; a stolen-borrowed “lawn gnome” is used as permission
for Dad to deliver revealing monologues to “us” (without breaking the fourth
wall) that he can’t deliver to the boys; and the outcome of the story is
quaintly telegraphed early on (but I won’t reveal the play’s own spoiler here).
The play seems like the product of a gifted student who still hasn’t learned
how to use, and at times camouflage, basic principles of craft.
Thomas
Vail, who skillfully directed In
the Heights, has done a nice, neat job here, and elicited good,
solid performances from the cast. And that full-heart conviction helps
considerably. But not, ultimately, quite enough. Broke-ology still requires some essential, internal fix-ology
to fulfill its potential…
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