American Nightmare.
Starring: Kerry Washington, Steven Pasquale, Jeremy Jordan & Eugene Lee. Director: Kenny Leon.
Sheets of rain cascade down like a forewarning of things to come. Even the Sunshine State of Florida is used to taking weather like this with them. The downpour usually lasts less than a minute, or the time it takes you to tweet about how crazy that is. And then the sun puts his hat on again and those soaked to the bone clothes of yours act like they've just been put in a tumble driver, no iron. But there's something different about the weather tonight. It just won't stop apart from breaks of inspired intermission, or thunder and lightning for punctuated dramatic effect. There's a storm coming. And as the curtain slowly, ominously rises in the beautiful Booth Theatre we are met by 'Scandal' and 'Django Unchained' star Kerry Washington sat, forlorn but focussed in a mesmerizing, makeshift police station...all the way down to the coffee table and donuts. She's staring and boring holes in the front row. Many of us lucky enough to sit there and get a real, close up feel of this drama think she's looking at us each individually. We want to keep our gaze, but our nerve and risk of making her feel uncomfortable, or put her off won't allow us too. As if we could! Because she's not looking at us. Or the nice guy next to you from Orlando you just met, or the lady and her daughter on your otherside. She's not starring right through us either however. She's just in the zone. Starring into the void. And THAT is true theatre. This writer was still weary from realising the time he takes a trip to New York is the one week his hero The Boss takes a break off his 'Springsteen On Broadway' show (such my luck. But with the cheapest seats going at seven and a half grand (pianos) from all those second sellers who apparently couldn't make it, I wouldn't have been able to anyway. Such is life). But when he scores a last minute 40 dollar rush ticket for a front row seat to one of the most powerful plays he's ever seen. Then (Spring what?!) he doesn't want to see the sun come up on the Broadway reign of 'American Son'.
Critically compelling. This play concerns Washington's American son, a missing person that finds herself in the middle of a police station in the heat of the night. Burning with urgency and more questions than the Spanish Inquisition. Is he safe? Is he hurt? What happened? Has he been a victim of a crime? Are they treating him as a suspect? Are they even looking for him right now? Those questions and more cross our minds with fury, so you can only imagine how Kerry's character feels. What she's thinking and asking. The police in this play right now are about as cooperative as a wet behind the ears rookie about to do the Dunkin' run. And all she wants is answers and to find her boy. And then just when you thought it couldn't come down any more, her estranged husband arrives on the scene. And all proverbial hell under the states sun breaks loose for a mother's mounting terror of concern held behind bars, in police contempt. This play is the world we live in right now personified in this all too real and all too human story which shows us humanity on all sides, no matter the bias, bigamy or bigotry. Each character has a core and it's going to be rocked until it's nothing by the final curtain. We need plays like this to be seen right now more than ever with the power of the 'Black Lives Matter' movement in full effect. Or men like the President trying to trump all that and build a wall up against it all. This profound play and it's dynamite dialogue is insightful and incendiary. There is nothing staged here. This is as real as it gets. Showing just how much a young, black individual's life or a womans worth in kind and who they really are means to a racist and discriminatory badge and gun. In a public service duty that is supposed to uphold that very justice and equality. But we all know in some precients really doesn't. Let alone that courtesy and professionalism that are as missing here as the respect. Lucky for us this show that shows up all that needs to be shot with a camera phone in for the record, record has exactly that, all due. More than a cautionary tale, 'American Son' is a critical juncture, generational story and sign of our times that will hopefully inspire the next.
Washington most famous for her political fixer from Washington D.C. reaches new heights and could take this to the capital in an exclamation of a powerhouse performance, in this black versus blue, mother versus system, nuanced narrative of power and who holds it when everything is slipping through our fingers. Inhibiting this part perfectly, she exhibits every evoking emotion. Yet displays great grace, poise and courage under fire. A glimmer of truth in all this diminishing light, the 'Ray' actress who grew up in New York, starring in shows with Jenny from the block, herself Miss Lopez of the Bronx has found her way home. And it may find her next to Tony for an actress who one day will gun for an Academy Award too. It's real and raw roles of punctuated performance like this (the greatest this theatre has seen since 'A Star Is Born' all singing superstar Bradley Cooper went in the Broadway and then West End direction of paying proper tribute and testament to 'The Elephant Man'. So much so that the 'American Sniper' should target his own big screen version, with all due respect to Charlie Heaton of 'Stranger Things' take) that really in real and true acting show naked emotionally just what these Hollywood actors are really made of. And Washington is made of the things of legends. With a new theatre run that will release many remakes and hopefully series or cinema serials long after she's taken her final bouquet and bow. But it all begins with her. And a class in itself cast. Like theatre beat vet and 'The People Vs OJ Simpson' star Steven Pasquale in powering, defence won't rest form. His last words by the curtain having powerful poignancy in blink and you miss it hidden messages and meaning to the real world, right now. Whilst 'Supergirl' star Jeremy Jordan's young, inexperienced, but old in his learned ignorant ways is right on the money even if his character is more than a few dollars and sense short. And then there's the veteran great of many an August Wilson classic, Eugene Lee in this 'Fences' fenced in one location stage set boiling pot as an old chief stuck in his ways he thinks are right. Unbelievable. It's rousing stuff that will keep you in its ravaging rapture. And anytime for relief if it's funny. It's satirically, scathingly, searingly so. Dont laugh. Gasp! All this is born from the definitive Kenny Leon directed and Jada Pinkett-Smith (who also produced 'The Karate Kid' for her son Jaden with Will) and power couple Gabrielle Union (of 'Bad Boys II'. Breaking in on a spin-off for her character with Jessica Alba as Will Smith and Martin Lawrence finally go for the three-peat) and Dwyane Wade (in his last, legendary season as the all-time franchise figure of the Miami Heat) produced plays script to stage run that carried on through. Sure there's a revolutionary in more ways than the giant marionette puppet production of 'King Kong' down the road in the Empire State, but it ain't got s### on this. This that is the most raw and best since great Brits Sienna Miller and Jack O'Connell took Williams' 'Cat On A Hot Tin Roof' to the tops of London last year. And hopefully the sun won't go down on this 'American' and it's lesson. Hopefully this 'Son' will last as decades long as a Tennessee titan. We hope as much as that many years from now it's subject matter, be no longer one of real world relevance. But if one day we can't live in peace, at least we'll find it on stage in theatre before we leave the auditorium. 'American Son', American daughter. This one's for all of you. TIM DAVID HARVEY.
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