Spring Break
The Daily OrangeStage adaptation's dialogue-driven stories cloud solid acting
By Kelly Outram
Posted: 10/13/08, 4:25 AM EST Section: Feature
"Blue Vein Society" and "Sweat" are two books turned plays that should have stayed on the page.
Director Samuel L. Kelley adapted "Blue Vein Society," a one-act play, from the short story "The Wife of His Youth" by Charles Chesnutt.
"Blue Vein Society" shared the stage with "Sweat," a play George C. Wolfe adapted from a short story by Zora Neale Hurston. The two one-act plays came together to form a night of African-American literature turned theater at the Paul Robeson Performing Arts Co. on Saturday.
Unfortunately, good acting and strong chemistry drowned in an excess of words.
In "Blue Vein Society," the United States is divided into two sects. On one side are free slaves and light-skinned blacks who were able to escape their dangerous pasts and rebuild their lives. On the other side, there are the slaves who recently found freedom alongside darker-skinned blacks who couldn't seem to get off their feet due to their skin tone.
Josh Ryder, the main character of the play, was happy with the way his life was going. He found a new life with his fair-skinned, college-educated wife in Ohio. He was about to gain the highest honor of being named president of the Groveland Social Society. Right at the height of his success, an old slave woman wandered into town looking for him, bringing back old memories of a past Ryder had been trying to forget.
Graduate student Ryan Travis, who played Ryder, was believable as a man torn between two worlds. At the beginning of the play, Travis's too-precise grammar and large vocabulary perfectly demonstrated Ryder's phoniness trying to appear from the upper class. His depiction of Ryder mirrored Damon Waynes' playing Rafael Delacroix in Spike Lee's "Bamboozled."
Annette Adams-Brown, of Syracuse, perfectly executed the role of Liza, the slave woman who ventured north after the war to look for her long-lost love, Samuel Taylor. From her poor-woman's clothes and head wrap to the pained look of years of struggling on her face, Brown did a perfect job bringing the audience along on her journeys.
Director Samuel L. Kelley adapted "Blue Vein Society," a one-act play, from the short story "The Wife of His Youth" by Charles Chesnutt.
"Blue Vein Society" shared the stage with "Sweat," a play George C. Wolfe adapted from a short story by Zora Neale Hurston. The two one-act plays came together to form a night of African-American literature turned theater at the Paul Robeson Performing Arts Co. on Saturday.
Unfortunately, good acting and strong chemistry drowned in an excess of words.
In "Blue Vein Society," the United States is divided into two sects. On one side are free slaves and light-skinned blacks who were able to escape their dangerous pasts and rebuild their lives. On the other side, there are the slaves who recently found freedom alongside darker-skinned blacks who couldn't seem to get off their feet due to their skin tone.
Josh Ryder, the main character of the play, was happy with the way his life was going. He found a new life with his fair-skinned, college-educated wife in Ohio. He was about to gain the highest honor of being named president of the Groveland Social Society. Right at the height of his success, an old slave woman wandered into town looking for him, bringing back old memories of a past Ryder had been trying to forget.
Graduate student Ryan Travis, who played Ryder, was believable as a man torn between two worlds. At the beginning of the play, Travis's too-precise grammar and large vocabulary perfectly demonstrated Ryder's phoniness trying to appear from the upper class. His depiction of Ryder mirrored Damon Waynes' playing Rafael Delacroix in Spike Lee's "Bamboozled."
Annette Adams-Brown, of Syracuse, perfectly executed the role of Liza, the slave woman who ventured north after the war to look for her long-lost love, Samuel Taylor. From her poor-woman's clothes and head wrap to the pained look of years of struggling on her face, Brown did a perfect job bringing the audience along on her journeys.
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