AISLE SAY New York

Reviewed by David Spencer

It is instructive, to put it mildly, to see the same dramatic technique, back-to-back, in two different biographical plays, and see one of them fall victim to its limitations as the other pushes the envelope to exploit the full range of what’s available.

            The first one, part of 59E59’s annual Brits off Broadway series is a bit idiosyncratic, production-wise. Usually the BoB shows are strtaight-ahead imports from the UK; but Handbagged (in the mainstage Theatre A space) by Moira Buffini comes wrapped in a production from Washington DC’s Roundhouse Theatre, based on an original production from the Kiln Theatre in London, same director, Indhu Rubasingham. Basically, it traces the sometimes intersecting parallel careers of, and oft-adversarial relationship between, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Queen Elizabeth. Two actresses play each, one older, one younger. They, along with two male supporting actors—one young, one old—who each play many characters, narrate and play out bits from a wryly affectionate summary record of their private lives and careers (tweaked a little bit for American audiences; especially important as self-conscious and self-referential acknowledgement of the audience is very much a part of the gestalt).

            And that’s kind of it. It’s chronological, has no long-game dramatic tension (isolated fits and bits and bubbles) and you keep waiting for something resembling a play to actually start. Instead, the experience feels like being stuck in the longest prologue ever.

            Things are quite a bit different, though, with Toni Stone by Lydia R. Diamond (based on the biography Curveball: The Remarkable Story of Toni Stone by Martha Ackman). It tells the story of a woman who played baseball alongside men on a team called The Clowns in the Negro Leagues. Or rather: It presents Toni (an endearing April Matthis in a breakout performance) telling her story. But she starts out in a mode of no-frills, plain-spoken, colloquial philosophy, telling us tells us right off the bat (pun intended) about how baseball is an extension of her being, the first concept imparted being the weight of the ball in her hand, and what that weight signifies existentially, though that’s not a word she would ever use herself. It’s sweet and funny and not long after she even tacitly throws us engaging challenge, as she tells us that her ability to tell a story isn’t as ordered as it might be, and that she’s going to jump around among events and time-lines.

            There’s actually less jumping per se than you might think, but all of this works like a great opening number in a great musical because it sets up the permissions—we get the ground rules of how this storytelling universe works, who controls it, and the thematic filter through which to pay attention. And that makes it more than a stage bio; now it’s not just the story of a life, it’s an exploration of a life, and that, that, boys and girls, makes it a play.

            Directed by Pam McKinnon, fluidly and playfully on a baseball dugout open space, with all the quick-change, cut-to techniques that implies, the cast, consisting otherwise of African American men (each of whom has one principal role, but assays others of any relevant gender or ethnicity) steps up to the plate like a team (yes, the puns abound here, but onstage so do the metaphors) and it’s all, in its way, as visceral as a championship game itself. (The others are Eric Berryman, Harvey Blanks, Phillip James Brannon, Daniel J. Bryant, Jonathan Burke, Tony Goins, Kenn E. Head and Ezra Knight; and you will note that, including Ms. Matthis, the ensemble numbers nine).

            Hard to know yet if Toni Stone will be the sleeper hit it feels as if it might be; but it sure is an important play. Try not to spread that around, though, lest anyone lose sight of it also being just so exuberantly entertaining.

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