Cindy De La Cruz, as middle sibling Marie, and Mateo Ferro, as kid brother Marian (more frequently called Butchie), in Ren Dara Santiago’s drama The Siblings Play at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater.
In mid-March, as the novel human coronavirus steamrolled New York City, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater had to pull the plug on Ren Dara Santiago’s The Siblings Play. The production, directed by Jenna Worsham, was nearing the end of previews, with four days to go before opening night.
Santiago is Rattlestick’s playwright-in-residence, courtesy of a Tow Foundation grant. The Siblings Play—her professional debut—was on its way to being collateral damage of the coronavirus until swift action by the company’s administrators and a concession from Actors Equity yielded happy news: the play’s run would continue, in a fashion, via online streaming.
The Siblings Play chronicles a household of five, with hyphenate ethnic identity, living paycheck to paycheck in New York City. Lenora (Dalia Davi), the mother, is Puerto Rican–Dominican; the father, Logan (Andy Lucien), is Haitian-American. The three children are Leon (Ed Ventura), 19; Marie (Cindy De La Cruz), 17; and Marian (Mateo Ferro), known as Butchie, 13.
Ed Ventura as eldest sibling Leon (right) and Dalia Davi as Lenora, the mother and nominal head of the household, in The Siblings Play.
Logan and Lenora—hardly beyond adolescence when they started their family—are now in early middle age. Logan, well-meaning but feckless, earns a paltry living on the fringe of the neighborhood drug industry. With a little college to her credit (and persistent debts to show for it), Lenora is hard-working—“always hustlin’,” as Leon says—but grandiose and self-centered. The two have spent their adulthood on the edge of insolvency, scrambling to make ends meet. This struggle has taken a toll on their dreams and their marriage. Since Lenora got wind of Logan’s affair with another woman, they’ve been living apart.
In the wake of their parents’ breakup, the siblings are on their own. They rely on Leonora for shelter, but she’s preoccupied with a demanding, sometimes demeaning job, plus a dating life that’s just a step away from prostitution.
Though intelligent and, at times, motivated, the three children have little opportunity. They’re confronted, day in and day out, by the harsh street life of Harlem. “I feel like I’m alone,” says Marie, “but I never feel like I’m by myself.”
Butchie is the achiever, both in school and athletics. The older two want to protect and encourage him, but they know as little about parenting their little brother as Lenora and Logan knew about parenting them.
This is a heartbreaking tale, riddled with startling moments, rich in verisimilitude, scant on humor. The ensemble cast is admirably balanced, with actors of sundry ages well matched in technique and ability.
The play’s villains aren’t portrayed by actors, but they’re palpable. There’s the drug culture that threatens the siblings’ futures. There’s crime, as prevalent in their own apartment building as on the street. And the backbreaking effort required to meet every month’s bills, leaving time and energy for little else.
Ventura and De La Cruz as the big kids of The Siblings Play. Photographs by Julieta Cervantes.
Santiago renders the seamy lives of her characters with raw, compelling dialogue. She weaves scenes from the past into the ongoing story without confusing things. In this she’s aided by the superb cast’s ability to slip back and forth from present to past, switching adroitly between their characters’ current and younger personae. In stage directions, Santiago refers to these flashbacks as “ghosts,” but they’re really the siblings’ recollections, accurate or distorted, of events that determine how the family lives—and suffers—now. As Logan says, “The memories keep coming back. And you can’t stop ’em.”
The Siblings Play brings to mind another dramatist’s professional debut a couple of generations ago. When Shelagh Delaney’s A Taste of Honey was presented in 1958 by Joan Littlewood’s scrappy Theatre Workshop (a London company not unlike Rattlestick), it was recognized immediately as an original, unvarnished script that captures with breathtaking thoroughness the dysfunctional relationship of a bright girl and her witless mother. Santiago’s script is similarly insightful about the siblings, their immature parents, and the stew of poverty and prejudice around them. And like Delaney, Santiago has an authorial voice all her own.
Worsham and the design team have made the most of Rattlestick’s compact space. Angelica Borrero’s set speaks volumes about the conditions—crowded and grimy—in which the family lives. Andy Jean’s costumes enhance the actors’ characterizations; and Michael Costagliola’s sound design brings the city into the playhouse and eases the transition from present to past and back again.
What’s being streamed is the final performance at Rattlestick’s Waverly Place stage, which took place on March 14. By offering the production online, this indomitable theater company celebrates a young dramatist’s debut and salvages a new American drama from misfortune.
Before New York City’s theaters were closed due to the outbreak of COVID19, The Siblings Play, produced by Rattlestick Playwrights Theater and piece by piece productions, in association with Rising Phoenix Repertory, was to have run through April 5. The production is now available for streaming and tickets, which are $15 each, may be purchased by visiting rattlestick.org.
