Crow’s Theatre & Obsidian Theatre/Flex, written by Candrice Jones, directed by Mumbi Tindyebwa Otu, Guloien Theatre, Streetcar Crowsnest, closes Might 18. Tickets right here.
Simply strolling into the Guloien Theatre is a beginning expertise, as a result of there in entrance of you is an precise basketball courtroom.
What takes place on the courtroom is dynamite, exhilarating theatre, to not point out that this Canadian premiere of American writer Candrice Jones’ Flex is a wonderful showcase for a gifted array of younger Black feminine actors.
The Characters
Ken Mackenzie’s astonishing set is the backdrop for the trials and tribulations of a highschool ladies’ basketball group known as Girl Prepare. It’s 1997 within the fictional Arkansas city of Plainnole, and whereas a number of the ladies dream of being scouted for the newly shaped skilled ladies’s basketball affiliation, like every regular youngsters, they’ve quite a lot of different issues on their minds.
Because the play opens, the women are ready for his or her coach (Sophia Walker). They’re additionally all sporting child bumps so they may seem like the pregnant April (Jewell Bowry). Evidently the coach received’t let any pregnant lady be on the group and they’re making an attempt to cover April’s situation. In reality, final yr Girl Prepare misplaced three gamers — so what does that say about contraception in Plainnole?
Proper from the beginning, we all know there’s a critical rivalry between Starra (Shauna Thompson) and Sidney (Jasmine Case). Starra has at all times been the hotshot, however with Sidney’s current arrival from California, Starra now has some critical competitors.
We additionally meet Cherise (Trinity Lloyd) who seems to be a youth minister and desires everybody to be baptized. She is in a tentative lesbian relationship with Donna (Asha James) who has the very best one-liners within the play.
Starra can be given monologues that punctuate the motion, and we discover out about her mom, a former star participant, and her blighted profession, and the daughter wanting to realize the greatness that her mom couldn’t. These narratives additionally give us a glimpse on the inside lifetime of an adolescent which underpins the colourful collision of personalities happening on the surface.
The Motion
As conversations keep it up, we go deeper into the women’ lives. One confesses to a historical past of abuse. One tells of a life not as gilded because it appears. One is afraid of dropping a beloved one, and over-hanging these private points is the bigger certainly one of being Black within the rural South.
Whereas all this is happening, the women play basketball. And so they actually do play. They dribble and go and shoot and all of it appears to be like actual. The significantly tall Case is listed on this system as teaching her solid members and she or he did a proper nice job. Case can be a standout amongst a gaggle of very gifted actors.
The center of the play is April’s plea for assist in fixing her child downside. Apparently you could possibly nonetheless get an abortion in neighbouring Mississippi in 1997. The most important flaw with the play is how the coach handles the state of affairs.
The Manufacturing
Creator Jones is on document as saying that her main objective is to jot down, “love letters for and to ladies of the American South”, whereas specifically, “celebrating younger Black ladies”. She has definitely given her characters such life like dialogue that there’s by no means a false second on stage, regardless of some weaknesses within the plot.
The ladies battle, they love, they damage, they assist. Some are outdoors, some are in, however finally, they care passionately about one another, and Mumbi Tindyebwa Otu is changing into certainly one of our most gifted administrators in establishing each character and state of affairs.
Impressed lighting designer Raha Javanfar has reworked the traces of the basketball courtroom right into a pulsing mild present of many colors which provides an actual zest to what’s an already punchy present. Thomas Ryder Payne had contributed the upbeat music between scenes together with some nice sound results, whereas Ming Wong‘s spot-on costumes embrace the distinctive Girl Prepare uniforms.
Flex
It appears the time period flex means a continuity of offence — a motion down the courtroom the place the gamers display screen and go in interchangeable positions and in no mounted roles, permitting for fast adaptability.
Clearly it’s this dynamic synchronicity that Jones has given to her characters, and for his or her half, this solid of younger ladies type one of many tightest ensembles seen in any theatre this season.
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Paula Citron is a Toronto-based freelance arts journalist and broadcaster who hosts her personal web site, paulacitron.ca. For over 25 years, she was senior dance author for The Globe and Mail, affiliate editor of Opera Canada journal, arts reviewer for Classical 96.3 FM, and dance previews contributor to Toronto Life journal. She has been a visitor lecturer for varied cultural teams and universities, significantly on the function of the critic/reviewer, and has been a panellist on COC podcasts. Earlier than assuming a full-time journalism profession, Ms. Citron was a member of the drama division of the Claude Watson Faculty for the Arts.
