Drama Review/Ed Rampell

Tenement Lament’s Testament

As earthquakes struck SoCal a theatrical aftershock rocked the L.A. stage in July with the West Coast premiere of “Scraps.” Geraldine Inoa’s powerful play is at the cutting edge of the stage and screen cycle of productions reacting to the surge of police and vigilante killings of African Americans and/or the judicial system’s unjust mistreatment of blacks. “Scraps” is among the best of these works protesting racial injustice and inequity perpetrated (and perpetuated) by those perps/ twerps — the “men” in blue and in robes (sometimes black, sometimes white).

Inspired by Michael Brown’s murder, “Scraps” focuses on how these injustices reverberate in the minds and lives of loved ones left behind after these discriminatory slayings occur. This may surprise some because according to racial tropes, African Americans aren’t sophisticated enough to have unconscious minds, but Inoa begs to differ.

Act I is set in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant, America’s largest Black community, as four traumatized friends at a tenement lament Forest Winthrop’s (an offstage presence) demise months after the promising football player’s death at NYPD’s hands. Hanging out on the stoop, Jean-Baptiste Delacroix (Tyrin Niles, who had recurring roles in the BET series “American Soul” and Tyler Perry Studios’ “Meet the Browns”), who is of Haitian background, clashes with visiting Calvin Young (Ahkei Togun) because he has moved away from the Bed-Stuy ’hood where they grew up to better himself by attending Manhattan’s Columbia University. It seems like the old crabs-in-the-bucket syndrome is at play here. And Jean-Baptiste appears to be a shiftless, pot smoking, ne’er-do-well — but in fact he’s an aspiring rapper and poet.

The weary Aisha Douglas (Denise Yolén, co-star of the films “Sankofa City” and “Sundays in July”) is the beautiful mother of Forest’s son Sebastian. She’s tired from working in a low wage job, although Aisha feels this endows her with the dignity of not having to rely on the government for “handouts.” At the stoop Aisha, who wears her hair in braids, takes Jean-Baptiste to task for being unemployed and urges him to attend a job fair. In a lighter moment with a droll reference to “The Brady Bunch”’s “Marsha! Marsha! Marsha!” exhortations, someone exclaims: “Aisha! Aisha! Aisha!”

When Aisha’s sister Adriana (NAACP Best Supporting Actress award winner Ashlee Douglas, who has acted in Robey Theatre Company productions and performs a one-woman Eartha Kitt show) first appears, she looks like a crackhead. However, Adriana is a student at NYU — of course, one could be a drug abuser as well as a university pupil, but the point is that as with Jean-Baptiste, there’s a lot more going on with her beneath the surface. Just as Jean-Baptiste beefs with Calvin for pursuing whitey’s higher education, Adriana causes Jean-Baptiste to take a detour from going to that jobs fair, perpetuating poverty’s vicious circle.

Jean-Baptiste also resents Calvin for romancing Aisha, who has a strong feminist scene wherein she asserts her right to “f**k” whoever she damn well pleases. In addition to dropping the so-called “F-bomb,” for some reason the “N-word” is used 75-ish times by the cast, mostly in the first act. Some may perceive this as gratuitous and be offended by repetitive usage of what is often hurled by nonwhites as a racial slur. Others may regard this as “realism.”

In any case, the quartet talks and plays music loudly. A policeman (ex-Marine and intelligence officer Stan Mayer is cannily cast as the play’s sole Caucasian) rousts them for disturbing the peace. He sexually molests Aisha. A confrontation between Calvin and the NYPD officer ensues. This ignites a riot and Adriana hangs herself on a street sign marked “Myrtle Ave.” in a sort of self-lynching.

If “Scraps”’ first act is in the Clifford Odets’ social realist tradition, Act II sharply veers toward Theatre of the Absurd. There is no intermission as the surrealistic second act abruptly takes us inside the mind of Forest’s child, Sebastian Winthrop (Damon Rutledge, an adult) and dramatizes not only African American angst, but Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Among other things, the four characters from Act I act out an absurd game show wherein Sebastian tries to cope with his dad’s death at the hands of the men in blue. When a policeman in a pig’s head appears Sebastian finds a pistol inside his father’s coffin and offs the pig, as police violence comes home to roost.

The second act of “Scraps” elevates the narrative and prevents the foursome seen in Act I from being mere stereotypes pursuing caricaturish behavior and dialogue. The play’s totally unexpected descent (ascent?) into absurdity is a startling transition into a Samuel Beckett-like realm — call it “Scraps’ Last Scrape.” It is well-acted and expertly helmed by Obie-award winning director Stevie Walker-Webb, but to carry this shocking departure from social realism to the Theatre of the Absurd requires the entire cast and crew’s collective creativity.

Costume designer Wendell C. Carmichael’s (“American Saga: Gunshot Medley”) garb for the quartet in the second act consists of what appears to be tight fitting brown undergarments, which suggests nudity, while allowing the actual actors a measure of modesty on the live stage. Scenic designer John Iacovelli’s set is transmuted from a realistic representation of Bed-Stuy to evoking the imaginative landscape of Sebastian’s troubled mind. Co-lighting designers Brian Gale and Zo Haynes, plus veteran sound designer Jeff Gardner, cooperate to bring Inoa’s script vividly to the stage. And kudos to the FX rigger Ian O’Connor (a stage and screen stalwart of special effects), which strongly enhance and move forward the play.

“Scraps” world-premiered Off-Off-Broadway at the Flea Theater and The NY Times called Inoa “a playwright to watch.” Now in her late 20s, Inoa writes for AMC’s zombie series “The Walking Dead” and is an alumnus of the Public Theater’s Emerging Writers Group and the first recipient of The Shonda Rhimes (“Grey’s Anatomy,” “Scandal”) Unsung Voices Playwriting Commission. Inoa has described herself as a survivor of childhood abuse and “queer.”

“Scraps” is at the forefront of the stage and screen cycle depicting police/court/vigilante transgressions against African Americans, which includes Dionna Michelle Daniel’s “Gunshot Medley,” Broadway’s “Mockingbird,” “The Central Park Five” opera and Ava DuVernay’s Netflix version of that gross miscarriage of justice. Unlike the others, Inoa’s work includes armed retaliation against the police, injecting a note of militancy. What was Inoa’s intention? The grand finale reminded me of two quotations, including Chairman Mao’s oft-repeated: “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”

The other quote is attributed to revolutionary psychoanalyst Frantz Fanon, but may actually be Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver’s interpretation and characterization of Fanon’s philosophy, paraphrased as: “The oppressed will regain their manhood by cutting off the head of their oppressors.”

Whatever Inoa’s intent, she is emerging as a major new dramatic force and “Scraps” not only announces her scrappy appearance on the stage, but serves as a stark warning to the powers that be. Delivering a knockout blow, “Scraps” is one of the best plays I’ve seen in a long time.

“Scraps” is being performed at L.A.’s Matrix Theatre through Sept. 15. For info: (323) 960-7711; www.matrixtheatre.com.

Ed Rampell is a film historian and critic based in Los Angeles. Rampell is the author of Progressive Hollywood, A People’s Film History of the United States and he co-authored The Hawaii Movie and Television Book, now in its third edition. This originally appeared at HollywoodProgressive.com.

From The Progressive Populist, August 15, 2019

Populist.com