Dinnertime in SuperHero, with (from left) Valisia LeKae, SJ Hannah, Bryce Michael Wood and Jeorge Bennett Watson.
SuperHero began performances the day after a gunman opened fire aboard a rush-hour Brooklyn subway train, giving added resonance to its protagonist’s decision to eschew violence as a response to personal turmoil. The playwriting debut of actor Ian Eaton, SuperHero is an autobiographical coming-of-age story about an awkward, overweight boy growing up in the Harlem projects in the 1980s.
In this autobiographical memory play, the main character—also named Ian Eaton—is portrayed at ages 5 and 10 by an adult actor, Bryce Michael Wood. Ian loves superheroes; his artistic older brother, Barry; and his West Indian parents. What he doesn’t like is being misunderstood, helpless and bullied. Entering fifth grade on the heels of a family tragedy, he finds all those issues exacerbated by a tough new classmate, Steve.
Jeorge Bennett Watson (left) plays both the father and best friend of Ian (Bryce Michael Wood, right). Photographs by Russ Rowland.
All three cast members besides Wood play multiple roles: SJ Hannah portrays both Barry and Steve; Jeorge Bennett Watson is Pop and Ian’s goofy best friend, Will; and Valisia LeKae (a 2013 Tony nominee as Diana Ross in Motown the Musical) plays Ian’s mother as well as his teacher, Sister Rosemary, and a girl at school named Tenisha.
SuperHero has enough emotionally affecting scenes—from the frightening (Ian getting mugged) to the sad (his parents’ grief) to the joyous (an unexpected friendship forms)—to make for a satisfying drama, but it is cluttered with extraneous busyness such as direct audience address and a recurring subway motif. The set’s backdrop looks like the exterior of a subway car, and several scenes begin with an announcement by an unseen conductor, yet this “metaphor” doesn’t really make a difference to the plot. Characters’ asides to the audience are just used for laugh lines, and it’s unclear why actors freeze in place during a sequence in the second act. Hip-hop and calypso tunes on the soundtrack provide good scene-setters, but some of the relentless musical cues, like the Mission: Impossible theme, are unnecessary and even out of place.
The script also seems disjointed, with early scenes that take a while to make their point and an opening that’s thematically and tonally incongruous with what follows. In that first scene, the actors are viewed through the window of a subway car. Adult Ian says in voice-over, “I’m having that dream again” (not the most original opening line). Then other passengers join him, also in voice-over, in reflecting on feeling aimless and insignificant. But this is a story about one child’s journey to acceptance and contentment, not about a general existential malaise.
Bryce Michael Wood (left) as Ian and SJ Hannah as Steve in SuperHero.
Later in the play, certain events that could be dramatized are merely relayed in monologues, and a few storylines go undeveloped or unresolved—Ian’s violin playing, for example, and what happens to an item he steals from his father. Whatever the play lacks in structure, though, it makes up for in heart. The performances brim with the passion that drives the company producing the play, Houses on the Moon, whose mission is “to transform lives and instill empathy” (many of the 20-year-old group’s projects have dealt with LGBT youth or gun violence). The actors go all-in on their various roles, whatever accent, age or skill they require. That includes rapping by Wood, LeKae and Hannah.
Instead of using props, actors mime many activities, like eating and sewing. Lawrence E. Moten III designed SuperHero’s set—the subway car upstage, with tables and chairs in the foreground that get reconfigured for home, classroom and other locales. Ronvé O’Daniel and Jevares C. Myrick are responsible for the busy sound design, which includes street noise, fighting neighbors, school bells, subway-announcement pings and a lot of music.
Director Warren Adams is credited with developing SuperHero with playwright Eaton, who initially conceived it as a solo show. While his storytelling could be smoother, his narrative doesn’t just circle around the usual tropes about life in “the hood”; it takes a surprising turn in the second half with a relationship that is sensitively rendered by the actors and offers hope to both characters and audience.
SuperHero runs through May 1 at the Sheen Center for Thought & Culture (18 Bleecker St.). Performances are at 7 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday and 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, with matinees at 2 p.m. Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday. For tickets, visit housesonthemoon.org.
