Besides being a terrific evening of theatre, the Black Rep’s production of “Pericles” offers a new and different thrill–the chance to walk out of a performance whistling the costumes. Sarita Paula Fellows and her assistants, Kathryn Albro and Alison Stewart, light up the stage with imaginative and colorful garb for all 14 cast members, sometimes three or four for the same actor. From the Joan Crawford-style hat and dress on Suzie Wall to the fire-engine red jacket and feather headdress on Robert A. Mitchell, Fellows’ costumes made me look forward to each scene change to see who was about to wear what.
Mitchell, outstanding as Gower, a narrator and scene-setter, plays several roles, as do all the cast members except Ka’ramuu Kush, who’s too busy as a handsome, regal-looking Pericles to do anything else. The title role in any Shakespeare play is a demanding one, necessitating range, passion, bravado and pain, and Kush is mostly dead-on. There are moments when he’s too fast, and swallows some words, but they don’t interfere with the enjoyment of the evening. The production, at the Grandel Theatre, will run through Jan. 30, and marks the beginning of the Black Rep’s 34th season, a major accomplishment.
Director Andrea Frye, who has been here several times before, has an exciting concept for the drama, one of Shakespeare’s lesser-performed plays. Given the African-American company involved, she begins in Africa, then moves much of the action to the Caribbean and juggles the time frame, so we are in Cuba in then 1950s, Haiti in the early 20th century (before Duvalier), New Orleans during Prohibition and the Sea Islands of Georgia, in addition to Africa before European colonialism and the slave trade.
This allows for sound designer Robin Weatherall to delve into all sorts of wonderful music and provides choreographer Heather Deal a broad palette of dance styles. That makes for a most happy evening, all taking place on Dunsi Dai’s two-level set, providing lots of room for the actors, under Mark Varns’ lights. In addition, a wide-screen backdrop provides photographic images of ocean scenes, forest scenes and many people, all slightly distorted, complementing Frye’s concept of a world a little off-key.
The production is helped by an NEA grant under its Shakespeare in American Communities/Shakespeare for a New Generation program. The Black Rep is one of only 40 companies to be a recipient.
The story? Well, it’s Shakespeare, which means there are many mistaken identities and people given up for dead who mysteriously re-appear. No twins in this one, however. Pericles was a real person (495-429 B.C.) who was a leader of Athens during that city’s golden age. He believed in democracy, was a great supporter of art and literature.
Shakespeare wrote him as a prince who got crossways with the king of Tyre and went into a sort of exile. He was generous to Cleon (Mitchell again) and his wife, Dionyza (a delightful Wall), then sailed on, got into a storm at sea and was washed ashore on another island where he won the hand of the king’s daughter, Thaisa (winsome and lovely Patrice McClain). They go to sea and face a storm. Thaisa gives birth to a daughter, Marina (splendid work from Sharisa Whatley) and seems to die, but she returns to life after the ministrations of a doctor played marvelously by Linda Kennedy. Marina is kidnapped by pirates (Joe Hanrahan is a hoot as one of them, and as a fisherman) and sold to a brothel, but she escapes. Fortunately, Pericles finds Marina and recognizes her as his daughter, then at a temple, finds Thaisa. Well, all’s well that ends well.
Since the actors play several roles, the comments above reflect only one role, but Kennedy, glamorously gowned and always highly visible, was brilliant and the entire cast is generally outstanding, with splendid work by Erik Kilpatrick, Joe Hanrahan, Rich Pisarkiewicz, Chauncy Thomas and Theo Wilson. It’s a high-energy, highly entertaining evening of theater, and kudos to the entire Black Rerp organization.
Pericles, by William Shakespeare, is a St. Louis Black Repertory Company production, at the Grandel Theatre through Jan. 30
—Joe
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One response
thank you for attending and your honest and kind review, joe and ann.
wishing you the very best!
ka’ramuu kush