Reviewed by Jerry Kraft
"The
Mojo and the Sayso" is a relatively obscure play from the late 1980's by the little
known playwright Aishah Rahman. Inspired by the 1973 killing of a ten-year-old boy by
New York City police looking for an adult burgler, this is neither a
social-problem drama nor a political protest against racial conflict. It's a
look at a self-contained (rather too self-contained) family trying to deal with
grief and loss, anger and guilt. The language of the play is enormously
complex; it uses varied and nuanced rhythms, striking accents, and purely
physical theatrical gestures to evoke the musicality of these emotions and of
these relationships. In this imaginatively designed (the brilliant Jennifer
Zeyl) and
well-directed production by Valerie Curtis-Newton, a solid cast delivers an
invested and often moving performance. In the end, however, the play seems too
much about its artifice, too conscious of its technique and too aware of its
effort.
The
unusual setting is a living room dominated by a full-scale automobile that is
being constantly repaired and constructed by Acts, the father of the dead boy.
Zeyl has designed a set in which that car, a great, sprawling road-yacht
convertible, is surrounded by brick half walls, so close that the occupants can
barely scrape between car and wall, and high, hanging windows suggesting a
building above this room. In the corners are small shrines of candles that the
mother, Awilda, lights in memory of the child and as ritual for her vastly
important religious connection. A flim-flam preacher, Pastor, who is a literal
embodiment of all the layers of deception that are often found in the
hypocritically faithful, impersonates that religious conviction.
Finally,
the older brother of the slain child now calls himself Blood and is filled with
anger and potential violence, breaking into his own family home and threatening
his parents with an unloaded gun. His insistence that Acts tell him exactly
what happened the night of the killing, and that he take responsibility for his
part in it drives the action. Awilda's decision of how to deal with the money
from a "wrongful death" settlement leads to her own epiphany, and the
resolution of the family crisis along with the completion of the car and their
metaphoric journey away from the confinement of this room to the freedom of the
open road.
Lindsay
Smiling is quite
wonderful as the makeshift mechanic, Acts. His nervous energy, his constant
effort trying to restore a broken vehicle, trying to make ill-used machinery
work again, trying to avoid all the greasy, gritty emotions clogging this
family, all of that is portrayed with focus and compelling authority. Balancing
that is a strong performance by Jose A. Rufino as Blood. The duality of a
street-tough, potentially dangerous young man and a needy, injured child is touching
and convincing. I like Tracy Michelle Hughes as Awilda, but can't really see
a lot of depth behind the desire to find absolution in her faith. Timothy
McCuen Piggee
plays the duplicitous Pastor well, but the role is the most artificial and
contrived, and is (for me) too obvious and one-dimensional.
That
really leads to my major problem with this play, and it is with the play rather
than the production or the performance. The symbolism of the car, the candles,
the exposure of the hypocritical Preacher, the use of highly poetical language
mixed with vernacular, the desire to make all of this greater and more
meaningful than the telling of a story, all seemed forced and inauthentic. I
don't mean that the emotions between these characters, and inside these
individuals was false, but that the writing felt contrived, and the theatrical
gestures too flamboyant and "artsy" for this story. Late in the play
one character says, "If you can find your mojo, then you'll have your
sayso." My problem with this play is that it all feels like the
playwright's sayso, and not enough about the mojo of these people trying to put
their lives together again.