Sisters Ermina (Malika Samuel) and Ernestine (Shanel Bailey) have much to discuss.
Lynn Nottage. Author of a Pulitzer-winning masterpiece (Sweat), another Pulitzer winner (Ruined), a wild phantasmagorical comedy with revealing things to say about the underclass (Clyde’s), a heartrending miniature she also skillfully adapted into an opera (Intimate Apparel), and several others. Who wouldn’t want to see a little-known early work of hers? Not for nothing is Keen Company promoting Crumbs from the Table of Joy as “the Lynn Nottage play you don’t know (yet).”
“[Sharina] Martin makes a particular meal out of Lily, a firecracker who enjoys being the center of attention.”
And Keen has done a fine job with it, though this 1995 Nottage isn’t quite the mature work one expects, and it comes up short in surprising ways: inconsistent characters; too much narration; and plot developments that don’t make as much sense as they mean to. Floridian Godfrey Crump (Jason Bowen) has resettled in Brooklyn in 1950, with teenage daughters Ernestine (Shanel Bailey) and Ermina (Malika Samuel), after the death of his beloved wife. (Bowen has to begin the play by sobbing uncontrollably, which isn’t easy for a young actor, and he’s good at it.) Godfrey, a baker on the night shift, is struggling to raise his children, and for guidance he turns to Father Divine, the controversial mid-century preacher who claimed to be God. Divine was based in Philadelphia, however, so why is Godfrey in Brooklyn? Nottage has a reason, a misunderstanding on Godfrey’s part, but it’s a hard one to buy.
Godfrey (Jason Bowen) with his daughters . . .
In a dingy basement apartment, designed with suitable shabbiness by Brendan Gonzales Boston, the only solid piece of furniture is an elegant console radio, one that Mrs. Crump won in a contest. Also elegant is Godfrey’s wardrobe: He dresses with dignity and tries to instill in his daughters both religious devotion and a solid work ethic. Ermina (Samuel is marvelous) isn’t having any of it; she’s sassy and fun-loving, while Ernestine is studious and friendless—why would she be? Anyhow, it leaves her time to narrate.
It’s a tenuous but stable existence shaken up by the arrival of Lily Ann (Sharina Martin), Godfrey’s sister-in-law, resplendent in costume designer Johanna Pan’s fire-engine-red ensemble. Lily, jobless and inviting herself to take up residence, is lively and talks a good game, but she’s a destabilizing force. She drinks. She carries an old torch for her brother-in-law. Worse, she’s a Communist. Not a recipe for glory.
That would be plenty of plot right there, but Nottage has another curve up her sleeve to ring down the Act I curtain: Godfrey’s chance encounter with Gerte (Natalia Payne), a German refugee he meets as he roams the city, having stormed out of the apartment after a fight with Lily. It’s a character inconsistency, given that he loves his kids and wouldn’t just abandon them without explanation. Another character inconsistency: After railing against whites, he announces he’s fallen in love with and married this white lady. Father Divine did the same, but it really strains credibility.
. . . and with sister-in-law Lily Ann (Sharina Martin), who will stir things up plenty. That’s Father Divine on the wall. Photographs by Julieta Cervantes.
So the stage is set for a second act of Gerte unsuccessfully trying to ingratiate herself in the Crump household, Ernestine obsessing over the high school graduation dress she’s designing, and Lily politicizing Ernestine, who thinks she, too, may be a Red. Also hard to buy: while Ernestine is smart and wants a better existence for her race, she also craves social acceptance and isn’t a natural rabble-rouser.
Still, Nottage’s gifts are readily apparent: she writes characterful dialogue, and she has some clever tricks. One is to play through a scene only to have a narrating Ernestine confess that it didn’t really happen that way, then rewind and play it truthfully. It’s an old device; even Neil Simon used it. But it works beautifully here, and two instances of it, Gerte’s Dietrich turn singing “Falling in Love Again” and her mambo with Lily, are highlights.
It’s a spare production, omitting some things in the script (a banquet, a kitchen) that Keen probably couldn’t afford. But the actors, cannily directed by Colette Robert, make up for any production deficiencies. Martin makes a particular meal out of Lily, a firecracker who enjoys being the center of attention and is fighting the frustration of being too smart for the meager things society will permit her to do. And it’s hard to take one’s eyes off of Payne’s Gerte, desperately pouring on the pleasantness in a hopeless effort to win acceptance from a household that hates everything she represents. Crumbs from the Table of Joy isn’t neat, has its lapses in logic, and rolls out any number of themes without entirely resolving them. But even early, lesser Lynn Nottage is stronger than a lot of what else is out there.
Crumbs from the Table of Joy runs through April 1 at Theatre Row Theatre 5 (410 W. 42nd St.). Evening performances are Wednesday through Saturday at 7 p.m., matinees are Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m. For tickets, visit www.keencompany.org.
