Our Halloween present from the Rep arrived a day late. Feeding Beatrice opened November 1 in the Studio Theatre, giving us a world premiere from Kirsten Greenidge, the playwright whose work Milk Like Sugar was done by the Black Rep earlier this year. It’s a self-described Gothic tale, although it’s surely the only one of that genre that opens with boffing in the bathtub.
June and Lurie Walker have just bought a large, elderly house ripe for rehab. It’s in a nice neighborhood in a good school district. They’ve had to work hard to accumulate the money for the house. June’s beyond eager to get the place shipshape because they want to make sure the neighbors understand they’re the right sort of people – and because there’s a social worker coming to assess them for adopting a child. Lurie is the financial realist and thinks that they don’t need, for instance, new towels for a bathroom that visitors aren’t apt to visit. The floor, however, in this self-same bathroom with the (aforementioned) large tub, which they’ve moved, does need some repair for broken tiles. Maybe his brother, who’s a plumber, can help with that when he comes to work on the tub’s pipes. But for now, what’s that they’re finding under the loose tiles?
The Walkers are black. She’s a bank manager, formerly a dance teacher, and he works at a television station, doing simultaneous closed caption writing. They’re determined to do better than their hard-working parents and are conscious that there aren’t very many African-Americans in the suburb to which they’ve moved. So when there’s a knock at the door and a young girl who says she’s a neighbor has come to visit, they’re happy to see her. That’s Beatrice, who’s a tad strange, immediately asking for some milk and then talking about watching American Bandstand and how she thinks Dick Clark is dreamy. Somehow, June becomes almost captivated by her. Lurie? A skeptic, a real skeptic. That’s just the beginning of what happens when a white teenager from the Sixties comes into a black household in the right now.
Director Daniel Bryant is making his debut at the Rep, and so is all his cast. Nathan James is Lurie-the-realist, strong and nearly unflappable, a fine performance. June is played by Lorene Chesley, and it’s a role that calls for more than it seems to early in the play; Chesley nails it perfectly. Allison Winn’s Beatrice is nails-on-a-blackboard creepy, just what the playwright must have dreamed of And Lurie’s brother Leroy is Ronald Emile, clearly a charmer.
The tech work here is terrific and plays a major part in the pleasures of the evening. Lawrence E. Moten III’s two level set, Jason Lynch’s lights and David Kelepha Samba’s sound all are remarkable and fit perfectly. Heather Beal’s choreography, from tango to tap, also is a necessity and it’s impossible not to enjoy it.
It’s a fascinating and culturally very relevant story, weakened only a little by a script that might use a little judicious tightening. But overall, great fun, some social nudging, perfect for the early dusk of November.
Feeding Beatrice
through November 17
Repertory Theatre St. Louis
Loretto-Hilton Center for the Performing Arts
130 Edgar Rd., Webster Groves