Last weekend's diverse theater openings included an acclaimed American classic, a dazzling reworking of mythology and a notable original script tailor-made for Black History Month awareness — and there wasn't a dud in the bunch.
The world premiere of Dream 7 Productions' Dark Horsemen offers an engaging story about the early days of thoroughbred racing, when African-American jockeys were not only common but often dominated the U.S. racing scene. Dream 7 playwright/director Michael L. Walker — back in the saddle himself after dealing with health issues for the past several years — has crafted a fine work, set in Virginia in the 1920s on a horse farm, where the white owners coexist somewhat uneasily with their black farmhands, who are long past Mr. Lincoln's emancipation but remain in thrall to Jim Crow. Walker intersperses his tale with interesting historical tableaux that reflect on America's racial realities at the time. With some daring, Walker has his characters speak hardcore Southern black dialect in relating the story of Blue, an aging jockey battling personal demons and seeking to assert his manhood.
Walker's cast of 11 features some excellent players, including John B. Wiggins, who broods affectingly in the leading male role, plus the likable Rodrikus Springfield, the powerful Sheerene Whitfield and the forthright Tia Smedley. Relatively newer faces such as Alita Brielle Terry, Christina Kretchik, Clark Harris, Aaron Rosebud and Alesha Harmon — some of whom have been active in the spoken-word scene — contribute equally important work. Veteran actors Ken Jackson and Rodney Pickel portray the racist horse breeder and his "white trash" trainer, respectively, and Walker doesn't fail to delineate the classism, and the irony, that separates them.
Though Dark Horsemen is a low-budget enterprise, some effort has been made to re-create the rural setting, and the costumes, credited to wardrobist Imani Rhema, are resourceful in conjuring period dress. The play continues through Feb. 26 at the Darkhorse Theater.
Meanwhile, Studio Tenn Theatre Company once again makes a strong bid for recognition as Nashville's hottest theater ensemble with a rich, beautifully modulated production of Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie. Director Matt Logan's staging lovingly explores all the sadness, hopelessness and mercilessly comical elements of life in the Wingfield family, authentically evoking 1930s St. Louis via his cast's understated Southern accents and his warm set's faded elegance.
The players approach near perfection in a play that, while perhaps not as boisterous or grandiloquent as
A Streetcar Named Desire or Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, respectively, is certainly their equal (or better) in character development and sensitivity toward the human spirit.
Nan Gurley has a wealth of experience in Nashville performing big roles (including Streetcar's Blanche DuBois at Tennessee Rep in 2002), but she could hardly be better cast as Amanda, matriarch of a severely wounded clan. Gurley wrings brittle pathos and desperate courage out of this epic character. Her performance is organic, always evolving. Ellie Sikes, as the gimpy beauty Laura, is Gurley's younger equal, portraying Amanda's shy and tragically vulnerable daughter deftly and eloquently. Eric Pasto-Crosby infuses his turn as beleaguered son Tom with the appropriate mix of frustrated affection for family and dreamy, poetic wanderlust. Lastly, Brent Maddox's Gentleman Caller is better than exemplary — his well-wrought "average guy" characterization benefits from a subtle and sad yet optimistic simplicity that only makes his departure from the Wingfield home all the more bittersweet.
The Glass Menagerie continues through Feb. 27 at Belmont University's Black Box Theater.
Finally, the Nashville premiere of Sarah Ruhl's Eurydice, a contemporary adaptation of the Orpheus/Eurydice myth, is as visually striking as it is thematically compelling. The Actors Bridge Ensemble/Belmont University collaboration, impressively staged by Jessika Malone, offers Nashville theatergoers a feast of color, water, music and multimedia style, as a cast of nine adventures its way through Ruhl's wildly imaginative retelling of a story of the love between father and daughter.
With Clayton Landiss' multilevel fantasy Underworld set, Richard Davis' shimmering lighting schemes and June Kingsbury's brilliant costumes, Eurydice — which premiered at Madison (Wis.) Repertory Theatre in 2003, and was produced at Yale Rep in 2006 and then off-Broadway in 2007 — sometimes echoes the dark spirit of Tim Burton's film phantasmagoria. Yet the author's words are the driving creative force, and the tightly knit company, despite its general youth, is up to the challenge. Performers include Kristin McCalley and Miles Gatrell as the star-crossed young lovers, faculty pro Bill Feehely in a charming paternal turn and Chris Rayis, who also contributed some interesting original piano compositions to the show's underscoring.
Eurydice is onstage through Feb. 27 at Belmont's Troutt Theater.
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