Trouble in Mind

 Trouble in Mind
Roundabout Theatre Company
American Airlines Theatre
December 26, 2021 

Photo courtesy of Roundabout Theatre Company

Roundabout Theatre Company’s production of Alice Childress’s Trouble in Mind is a revelation.  The play received high acclaim when it was first produced Off-Broadway in 1955.  It was scheduled to move to Broadway, but was cancelled when Ms. Childress refused to make significant changes.  She chose not to soften the story that illustrated the racism in the theatre and film industry.  After sixty-six years, Trouble in Mind has received it’s well deserved Broadway production.  It is a well crafter play with strongly developed characters that make a powerfully clear statement about the untruths depicted in American entertainment.

Wiletta Mayer (played by LaChanze) enters the theater for the first rehearsal of a play she is working on.  She meets the doorman, Henry (played by Simon Jones), who remembers her from a production he set the lights for a number of years prior.  He treats her like a star.  She meets John (played by Reynaldo Piniella), an up and coming, young actor.  She schools him on how to behave when in rehearsal with a white director.  Millie Davis and Sheldon Forrester (played by Jessica Frances Dukes and Chuck Cooper) join the rehearsal.  They are old friends with Wiletta.  When the director, Al Manners (played by Michael Zegen) arrives, he is a no-nonsense task master.  He pushes Wiletta and the rest of the cast to find the truth in their acting, yet the material they are working on does not contain truths worth their effort.  The cast all works at giving the director what he asks for during rehearsal, but when a scene where the character played by John Nevins is going to be dragged off and lynched, Wiletta pushes hard to make changes in the play that are more truthful for the characters. 

LaChanze as Wiletta Mayer
Photo courtesy of Roundabout Theatre Company

LaChanze portrays Wiletta with grace, poise, and zest.  The character is an experienced performer with a yearning to play a serious role.  When the conflict erupts, LaChanze plays the moment with strength, wisdom, and conviction.  Michael Zegen’s character of the director, Al Manners, comes back to her logically and rationally.  These two actors skillfully play this scene, keeping their composure to the very last moment.  This is an amazingly written scene and LaChanze and Mr. Zegen do it supreme justice.  

Michael Zegen, LaChanze, & Chuck Cooper
Photo courtesy of Roundabout Theatre Company

Chuck Cooper has a riveting monologue in Act II.  The action stops as his character tells of a lynching he witnessed as a young boy.  Mr. Cooper takes the audience deep into his character’s traumatic childhood memory.  It is a powerful moment and brilliantly delivered.

Jessica Frances Dukes is feisty as Millie Davis.  Reynaldo Piniella is charming as John Nevins.  There are also strong performances from Simon Jones, Victoria Oliver (u.s.), Alex Mickiewicz, and Don Stephenson. 

Trouble in Mind is playing at the American Airlines Theatre through January 9.  The performances are powerful and the writing is magnificent.  Don’t miss it.  

Domenick Danza

The Skin of Our Teeth

The Skin of Our Teeth

Theater for a New Audience

Polonsky Shakespeare Center

March 4, 2017

Photo courtesy of Theatre for a New Audience

The Theatre for a New Audience production of Thornton Wilder’s The Skin of Our Teeth is life affirming.  This American Classic, written seventy-five years ago, is fresh and alive.  Thornton Wilder’s themes and messages are as pertinent to our lives today as they were in 1942, when he won the Pulitzer Prize for writing it.  Arin Arbus’ direction is spot on and clear.  She opens the action of the play in a way that pulls every audience member into the story.  The production rings with vim and vigor due to original music by Cesar Alvarez and choreography by Sonya Tayeh.  The cast of thirty-six unite to create an engaging experience that encourages deep contemplation.

Kecia Lewis, Kimber Monroe, & David Rasche
Photo courtesy of Theatre for a New Audience

Act I opens on Sabina (played by Mary Wiseman), the housekeeper to the Antrobus family, preparing for Mr. Antrobus (played by David Rasche) to return from work.  We meet Mrs. Antrobus (played by Kecia Lewis) and their two children, Gladys (played by Kimber Monroe) and Henry (played by Reynaldo Piniella).  They are the perfect family, except for the alarming secrets they keep hidden and their deep seeded resentment toward one another.  Their existence is threatened by the ice coming from the north, moving everything in its path.  They reluctantly open their home to a large number of refugees in need of shelter and warmth.  It is the ice age, and the world as they know it will soon come to an end. 

Mary Wiseman as Sabina
Photo courtesy of Theatre for a New Audience

Act II find the Antrobus family in Atlantic City among mayhem and merriment.  “Enjoy yourself” is the message of the day, yet a Fortune Teller (played by Mary Lou Rosato) predicts destruction by a great storm.  As the rain begins, the Antrobus family boards a huge boat with two of each animal species in order to start all over again.

Act III is dark.  The great war has ended.  The Antrobus family and Sabina have survived, and Gladys has a baby.  It is time to rebuild, yet Mr. Antrobus is tired and disheartened.  He tells of the three thoughts that got him through the war: the voice of the people, his home and family, and his books.  It takes community effort to restore the safety of their home and, as in Act I and Act II, mankind endures.

Photo courtesy of Theatre for a New Audience

Every member of the cast and ensemble is skillfully precise.  Mary Wiseman is vivacious as Sabina.  Her comic timing is superb.  Her Sabina plays amazingly well when juxtaposed against Kecia Lewis’ Mrs. Antrobus.  Their rivalry is fierce and superseded by their bond of understanding.  David Rasche grounds the action and keeps it moving as Mr. Antrobus.  Reynaldo Piniella creates a multi-dimensional Henry who is plagued by anger and driven by need.  Kimber Monroe’s Gladys grows and matures in the course of the three acts.  Mary Lou Rosato’s Fortune Teller is wild, crazy, and truthful.

Photo courtesy of Theatre for a New Audience

The hordes of refugees in Act I and rounding up of the animals in Act II harkens to the political challenges we face today.  There is a seductive conversation between Mr. Antrobus and Sabina in Act II about wealth and power that could easily be viewed as a (fictional) discussion between Donald and Melania Trump.  With scenic design by Riccardo Hernandez and costume and puppet design by Cait O’Connor, the production is astounding.  The Skin of Our Teeth is running at the Polonsky Shakespeare Center in Downtown Brooklyn through March 19.  It is a mammoth play with timeless themes and a stellar cast. 

Domenick Danza