March 13, 2022: "Stew" at Ujima and "Pride and Prejudice" at the Kavinoky

 

The savory smell of something on the stove welcomes us into the Ujima Theater for this 2021 Pulitzer Prize finalist by Zora Howard called “Stew.” We’re in a kitchen, a functioning one. Water runs from the taps in the sink and there’s a wastebasket stashed under the food prep island for the scraps from an endless succession of carrots, string beans, peppers, onions and potatoes that are sliced, diced, scooped up and thrown into a big pot on the back burner.

          I can’t help but recall the old theater adage – the one that says if you see a gun at the beginning of the first act, it’s going to be fired before the end of the third act – and wonder if it applies to knives. Will there be brandishing? Not literally, but they’re constantly in motion.

          Mama’s cooking is the heart and soul of this 90-minute visit, which begins with Mama (Karen Saxon) declaring that she’s going to catch that annoying barking dog next door, chop him up and cook him, but there’s a lot more simmering around the edges.

          Living with Mama, and pressed unwillingly into various tasks for making a dish for a church function, are three daughters – world-weary Lillian (Jacquie Cherry), who has two children of her own from a broken relationship; Nelly (Ember Tate), a bouncy 17-year-old who proudly proclaims that her boyfriend is “a man”; and Lil’ Mama (Millie-Rae Rodriguez-Spencer), a sullen tween with aspirations for the stage.

          The familiar rhythms of family life and the routines of culinary chores are the foundations of “Stew” and they would be a satisfying meal all by themselves. But it’s the spice that makes the difference – the snap and sting of repartee as revelations start piling up and hopes begin taking dark turns. The cast brings it to a proper boil, though the pacing was a little uneven in places on opening night. Nevertheless, “Stew” is sure to get tastier with time. It’s playing through March 27.

          What a contrast “Stew” is from the family life on display in the Kavinoky Theatre, where the post-pandemic reopening of this refurbished gem of a venue is being celebrated with “Pride and Prejudice,” also on view through March 27.

          This is not the archly amusing Jane Austen drawing room drama we’ve come to cherish like an ancient aunt, but rather a raucous romp through its tropes by feminist playwright Kate Hamill.

          Here Lizzy, played by Gabriella McKinley, is a woman of color. Her piano-mangling younger sister Mary is a guy in frumpy drag. Many in the cast inhabit at least two roles and there’s such a whirlwind of genders and identities that it took me half the first act to get a grip on the cognitive dissonances. Once in the groove, though, it’s uproar all the way.

          We saw it on opening night a week ago and, at the reception that followed, I told actor Christian Brandjes that he should get a special Artie Award for the quick costume changes that transform him suddenly from Charlotte Lucas to Mr. Bennet. Oh no, he said, that should go to Jacob Albarella. His switches from Mary to Mr. Bingley are even faster. 

          An exception to all this is Ben Michael Moran, who embodies nobody else but Mr. D’Arcy. Such a handsome and steadfast sourpuss is D’Arcy, I was reminded during the following week as we streamed the six-part BBC “Pride and Prejudice” from 1995. D’Arcy here is a career-making role for young Colin Firth, not least because of that magnificently manly occasion in Episode 5 when, having stripped away most of his Georgian finery, he emerges dripping in his undershirt from a solitary dip in a pond. The Guardian has deemed it “one of the most unforgettable moments in British TV history.”