{"id":11641,"date":"2014-05-14T17:08:52","date_gmt":"2014-05-15T00:08:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/?p=11641"},"modified":"2014-05-14T17:13:26","modified_gmt":"2014-05-15T00:13:26","slug":"potent-a-c-t-musical-drama-the-suit-stirs-emotions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/potent-a-c-t-musical-drama-the-suit-stirs-emotions\/","title":{"rendered":"Potent A.C.T. musical drama, \u2018The Suit,\u2019 stirs emotions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Woody’s [rating:4]<\/span><\/p>\n

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Extraordinary actors Nonhlanhla Kheswa (right) and Ivanno Jeremiah and an ordinary suit star in \u201cThe Suit.\u201d Photo by Pascal Victor\/ArtComArt.Photo by Pascal Victor\/ArtComArt.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Nonhlanhla Khesa effectively uses her arm to romantically caress herself, puppet-like in \u201cThe Suit.\u201d Photo by Johan Persson.<\/p><\/div>\n

Racism, as depicted in the apartheid-fouled Johannesburg of \u201cThe Suit,\u201d is downright ugly.<\/p>\n

And brutal.<\/p>\n

Palpably tragic.<\/p>\n

Worst of all, it\u2019s reflective of today\u2019s racism in an America that pretends it\u2019s integrated when its all-too solid walls of bigotry remain intact.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a fascinating coincidence that \u201cThe Suit\u201d opened at San Francisco\u2019s A.C.T. Theatre only one day after L.A. Clippers\u2019 owner Donald Sterling was fined $2.5 million and barred for life from the National Basketball Association for overtly anti-African American statements.<\/p>\n

Though peppered with multiple instances of levity, \u201cThe Suit\u201d is a solemn theatrical time bomb intentionally ignited by Peter Brook, an 89-year-old British director.<\/p>\n

Brook clearly stages the kind of in-your-face prejudice I\u2019ve always found abrasive and offensive.<\/p>\n

Adapted from a Can Themba short story, the 75-minute drama thrusts into the foreground a husband who, after discovering his wife in bed with a lover, insists she take with her wherever she goes the suit her fleeing sex partner left behind.<\/p>\n

It becomes, essentially, a scarlet letter, the traditional sign of sin.<\/p>\n

Over all, the play exudes a surreal, fable-like quality, abetted by a Dali-esque set consisting of unadorned (yet colorful) wooden chairs and bare clothing racks.<\/p>\n

But the extraordinary three-actor cast seamlessly integrates poignancy, music and pantomime.<\/p>\n

Nonhlanhla Kheswa, Johannesburg native and veteran of Broadway\u2019s \u201cThe Lion King,\u201d is outstanding as the adulterous Matilda. Her body language and elegiac voice unerringly convey how she wears her punishment.<\/p>\n

Ugandan-born Ivanno Jeremiah adeptly plays her humiliated, vengeful spouse, Philomen, middle-class wage-slave who\u2019s suffered daily abuse from a system that downgraded a whole black population to second-class status.<\/p>\n

New Jersey-born Jordan Barbour skillfully fills in the gaps as he jumps from role to role.<\/p>\n

Musical interludes range from traditional African melodies to timeless American jazz pieces such as \u201cFeelin\u2019 Good,\u201d the Nina Simone standard, and the painful Billie Holiday classic about lynching, \u201cStrange Fruit.\u201d<\/p>\n

To prevent my review from being disingenuous, I must mention that the touring production from Th\u00e9\u00e2tre des Bouffes du Nord is imperfect.<\/p>\n

Even heavy-handed sometimes.<\/p>\n

As when the fourth wall is broken by actors who provide the audience with invisible joints, or when folks are invited to represent white participants onstage at a shebeen, a speakeasy-like party.<\/p>\n

Additionally, Brook, whose \u201cThe Empty Space\u201d has been a theatrical bible for generations, has paced the play so deliberately I twice felt compelled to check my watch.<\/p>\n

None of that, however, undercuts the emotional impact of the show.<\/p>\n

Besides, \u201cThe Suit\u201d contains numerous magic moments.<\/p>\n

When, for instance, Matilda puts one arm into the empty outfit and, puppet-like, achingly caresses herself as if it were still being worn by her absent lover. When she sings, in Swahili, an upbeat song that\u2019s crushed by Philomen with only a few words. When she foreshadows crucial action by dedicating a melancholy tune to \u201ceach and everyone who cannot get what they want in life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Or when the actors pantomime being on a rolling commuter train.<\/p>\n

When trumpeter Mark Vavuma wrings every possible emotion from his muted horn. Or when Mark Christine underscores the play\u2019s tragic m\u00e9nage \u00e0 trois via a soulful Bach \u201cSt. Matthew Passion\u201d on a solo compact synthesizer.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Suit\u201d is set in the 1950s in Sophiatown, an overcrowded black appendage of Johannesburg that actually was bulldozed.<\/p>\n

With more than 65,000 blacks forcibly removed.<\/p>\n

I, frankly, was grateful the stream of real 1950s violence was referenced but not shown onstage. It was surely enough just to envision each of a black man\u2019s fingers being bloodied, and his being shot 34 times.<\/p>\n

The first-impression simplicity of \u201cThe Suit\u201d is purposefully deceptive, making its vivid ending even more powerful, more numbing.<\/p>\n

The opening night audience, in fact, seemed so stunned it took it a few seconds to rise for a well-earned standing ovation \u2014 and then it did so almost in slow motion.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Suit\u201d plays at the American Conservatory Theater, 415 Geary St., San Francisco, through May 18. Performances Wednesdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Tuesdays, 7 or 8 p.m.; matinees, Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays, 2 p.m. Tickets: $20 to $120. Information: (415) 749-2228 or www.act-sf.org.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Woody’s [rating:4] Racism, as depicted in the apartheid-fouled Johannesburg of \u201cThe Suit,\u201d is downright ugly. And brutal. Palpably tragic. Worst of all, it\u2019s reflective of today\u2019s racism in an America…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"yasr_overall_rating":0,"yasr_post_is_review":"","yasr_auto_insert_disabled":"","yasr_review_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-11641","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-woody-weingarten"},"yasr_visitor_votes":{"stars_attributes":{"read_only":true,"span_bottom":"