Savior?
Written by Esther Armah
Directed by Jonathan Wilson
eta Creative Arts, 7558 S. South Chicago (map)
thru May 11 | tickets: $30 | more info
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What just happened?
eta Creative Arts presents
Savior?
Review by Kat Hey
I walked in to eta Creative Arts prepared for an intelligent presentation on race relations in post-Obama America. The premise for Savior? is a potential tinderbox of arguments and theories. Billy Hall (Keith Cavanaugh) is a White man who is suing his former employer for discrimination after being passed over for a CEO position at a nonprofit. The foundation has a history of fighting against racial injustice and Billy has been on the front lines proving himself. He loses out to a Black woman. Billy hires a Black law firm who passes the case to an ambitious attorney named Marcus Jamal Williams III (Parrish Morgan). The stage is set……and what follows is quite disappointing.
Morgan is not given a lot to work with in this production. He is an appealing actor in what has become a standard role for a Black actor. The BMW (Black Man Working) has a double edged sword built in to the character. Is he strident and always reminded of the Black struggle for equality? Or is he properly enmeshed in corporate culture by masking the surface of his identity and ‘turning’ on his people. Morgan’s portrayal comes off as strident. It is apparent that this case is not about making a name for himself in legal parlance, it is about what Marcus believes is justice.
The same fate befalls Cavanaugh. His character is given a lot of preachy diatribes with no shading or subtlety to be found. He does not come across as a man on the edge of losing everything while holding to principle. Cavanaugh reminds me of the old Gale Gordon character Mr. Mooney, who’s at his wits end with Lucille Ball. His fist clenching and growling is buffoonery. This could work if one felt a scintilla of character shading from either actor. They don’t have a chance with the dialog. Marcus is not a hungry attorney looking to make a name for himself. Billy is not a True Believer and there is no amount of anti-Tea Party spouting to make me buy into his fervor.
There is one reference to soap opera, which becomes quite prescient of how Savior? plays out. An interlude with Morgan donning his best Johnny Cochran suit and dancing is a complete waste of time as it fails to produce any type of character development. We don’t need to see how cool he is as he is about to make his mark on the world. The pacing is disappointing and not what I have come to expect from director Jonathan Wilson, who has a reputation for tight staging with gripping character development. Unfortunately, though, this is a morality play that cannot be salvaged – even by competent direction.
I gritted my teeth as the case was made for how black women are treated in American society and in the media. If the intention is a treatise on how black women’s advancements are always tainted with being used sexually, perhaps the attorney should have been a black woman. Why is it up to a white character to convey a black woman’s vulnerability and up to a black male character to come to the rescue? There is boundless potential in the subject matter of Savior? and I found myself asking "what just happened? " when I left the theater. This was a collection ‘oh snap’ moments spoken into a voice recorder as Marcus makes notes to self and then notes to Black self. The voice recorder gag got old really quick.
Savior? is not witty or challenging. It falls back on stock portrayals and dialog that preens rather than incises through the morass that is the news media and what feeds it. eta Creative Arts Foundation has proven themselves capable of great theater that portrays the Black American experience intelligently with wit and the perfect touch. This is a disjointed 90 minutes with broadly drawn characters and themes. What just happened?
Rating: ★½
Savior? continues through May 11th at eta Creative Arts, 7558 S. South Chicago (map), with performances Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm, Sundays 3pm. Tickets are $30 ($15 for students and seniors), and are available by phone (773-752-3955) or at the door (check for half-price tickets at Goldstar.com). More information at etaCreativeArts.org. (Running time: 90 minutes, no intermission)
artists
cast
Parrish Morgan (Marcus Jamal Williams III), Keith Cavanaugh (Billy Hall), Aaron Norman and Benjamin Todd (understudies)
behind the scenes
Jonathan Wilson (director), Darryl Goodman Senior (technical director, light and sound design), Lori Clovetta Washington (stage manager, sound tech), Moon Jung Kim (set designer), Constance Blackmon Lee (costume design), Flora Montes (light design intern), Darryl Turner (master carpenter), Wallace Heard, Jr. (light tech crew), Shonda Royall (light/tech crew), Darryl Turner (asst. stage manager), Cynthia Maddox (photography)
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