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It's four o'clock in the morning on a dark, rainy morning in Christopher Demos-Brown's captivating play "American Son" and Kendra Ellis-Connor (Kerry Washington) and Scott Connor (Scott Pasquale), who have since split up four months, meet Miami Police Station in trying conditions. Their son and some of his friends had an unexplained clash with the highway police – and this bad news is all the more disturbing as it is so vague.
Kendra and Scott are not an ordinary couple and their child is not an ordinary child. She teaches psychology and is an FBI agent who wears her shield on her belt. They sent their 18-year-old son Jamal to the best schools – his graduation gift from the preparatory school was precisely the car that had put him in trouble – and he's about to enter West Point. But for the moment, Jamal does not respond to messages that are quickly rising on his mobile phone and his parents are frenzied.
Kendra is the first on the scene and her concern is expressed on the delicate but expressive face of Washington as she paces the public waiting room of the pavilion. Director Kenny Leon has badembled a strong creative team for this theatrical game. The decor is a cold and heartless place in Derek McLane's design.
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The torrential rain and the occasional lightning that hits the bare windows have something bothersome and soothing. Thanks to Peter Kaczorowski's inimitable lighting and Peter Fitzgerald's remarkably badertive sound design, the weather conditions reflect the emotions of the characters trapped in the room too accurately.
It's hard to look away from Kendra from Washington, whose anguish seems to have invaded his whole body. As a mother, she knows that even a sweet and well-behaved child can have problems in this world. And as a black woman, she knows that life is never easy for a young black man, regardless of his background. All these thoughts fit so well on Washington's face that we can almost hear her thoughts as she thinks the worst.
Something so tender and so disturbing in Kendra's attempt to get a policeman to see his "boy" in the bright, six-footed young man who was not found at this untimely time. "He walks like a jock, but he can recite almost all of Emily Dickinson's poems," she says, "and he's scared of clowns."
But for such a well-educated person – a psychology professor, no less – Kendra is remarkably stupid about his interaction with the young, inexperienced officer Paul Larkin (Jeremy Jordan, very keen, but that this woman scares appropriately) who oversees the night. No matter how many times the policeman badures Kendra that he has no other knowledge than that of knowing that Jamal was "identified during an incident", Kendra stops no screaming – make him scream – for more information. Jordan kindly conveys Agent Larkin's naivety without making him completely stupid, but the beleaguered officer deserves a pay raise for enduring Kendra's condescending heels.
Officer Larkin's soft phrase – "Do not disrespect, ma'am, but we have a protocol" – infuriates a mother for whom protocol means nothing about her only child. But lacking both experience and imagination, the rookie policeman adheres to this protocol because that's all he knows.
The playwright Demos-Brown is a brilliant inventor of phrases. He loves using language that perfectly illustrates the social and educational gap between Larkin and Kendra. In the absence of a common language, they fail to communicate even at the most basic level. The clerk's awkward efforts to find out if Jamal is using another name are a sad but amusing example of this lack of communication: "If he was arrested under another pseudonym … he gave another … you know … different d & # 39; Another time. … that's all I'm saying … "The idea of a street name is so foreign to Kendra that she honestly does not understand what Agent Larkin is asking of her .
The worst thing is that when Kendra's former husband, Scott, arrives at Pasquale's personality, Agent Larkin miraculously gains much more information about where Jamal is. Although race undoubtedly plays an important role in the couple's life, this particularly exasperating moment concerns all the roles of both bades. The little lady can shout all she wants, but it is only when her big, virile husband arrives on the scene that the police will speak to us frankly.
In the end, however, this thoughtful piece really concerns the character who is not there, Jamal. While his parents bicker and blame each other for the aberrant behavior of their son, Jamal animates as a smart and sensitive young man, whose moral balance has been seriously shaken by the breakup of his parents, at the same time. point that he may have escaped in his new car. and do something stupid.
This is not the first piece to consider the unique difficulty of being a young black man trying to badert himself in an indifferent, even hostile society. But it is a piece that really pleases this young man (who does not even appear, it should be noted) and his parents. It's pretty good for a piece that's probably a bit too small for Broadway and a bit too narrow to cast a long shadow, but still manages to stay under the skin.
Broadway Review: "American Sound" with Kerry Washington in the spotlight
Booth Theater; 760 seats; $ 169 upstairs. Opened November 4, 2018. Reviewed November 1. Duration: ONE HOUR, 15 MIN.
Production:
A presentation by Jeffrey Richards, Simpson Street, Rebecca Gold, Will Trice, Stephen C. Byrd, Alia Jones-Harvey, Nnamdi Asomugha, Dominick Laruffa, Jr. & Co., Greenleaf Productions, Van Kaplan, Willette and Manuel Klausner, Jada Pinkett Smith, The Miami Group, Lu-Shawn M. Thompson, Act 4 Entertainment, Gabrielle Palitz, Carl and Robin Washington, Bruce Robert Harris and Jack W. Batman, Shonda Rhimes, Bellanca Smigel Rutter, Salmira & Son, Jayne Baron Sherman, Steve Stout for UnitedMasters, Steven Toll, Dwyane Wade, Union-Wade Gabrielle and The Shubert Organization of a one-act play by Christopher Demos-Brown, originally presented by Barrington Stage Company.
Creative:
Directed by Kenny Leon. Set, Derek McLane; costumes, Dede Ayite; lighting, Peter Kaczorowski; his, Peter Fitzgerald; responsible for production, Jane Gray.
throw:
Kerry Washington, Stephen Pasquale, Eugene Lee, Jeremy Jordan
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