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| L - R Back-row: Keir Thirus, Ashlee Olivia, Countee Cullen L - R Front-row: Ben Guillory, Toyin Moses, Rosie Lee Hooks |
The Robey Theatre Company in association The Los Angeles Theatre Center
presents Knock me a kiss written by Charles Smith and directed by Dwain A.
Perry through May 11th, 2014.
Dwain A. Perry, the director, sat four seats to my right, near
the office set of Knock Me A Kiss. If
there is a director within eyesight I’m going to take a peek every now and
again to get a reaction, just as I do with other audience members who may enjoy
a moment or otherwise.
First of all, I love going to see the Robey Theatre Company who,
by the way, is celebrating their 20th Anniversary. It is here you will find some of the finest
actors working in Los Angeles.
There are nights when performers hit all the right notes,
but that is rare in theatre, which makes it all the more exciting. And it was
on this night of outstanding performances where some things require a little
discussion. I’ll have more on that
later.
In the very early morning hours of the year 1928, Jimmy
Lunceford (Keir Thirus), an up and coming bandleader, is escorting his date,
Yolande Du Bois (Toyin Moses), home. Impatiently serenading her until that special
moment arrives.
But, before going in Yolande gives Jimmy a little warning.
“You’re gonna have to be quiet, Jimmy.” – Yolande
Ain’t nobody home. – Jimmy
Jimmy is a man who likes it his way. This presents a problem immediately when Jimmy
wants from his amour. After a few
moments of trying to get through the front door, he enters and sees “swank”.
And already he’s got Yolande’s old man figured out, sees that he is a thinking
man, a man of brains, and of little heart.
But all that aside, what Jimmy wants to do is to run his
tongue across Yolande’s “sweet plums”.
“Come on and knock me a kiss.” – Jimmy
“My mother’s here.” – Yolande
“ I’ll be quiet. I swear. Quieter than a mouse pissing on cotton.” -
Jimmy
Yolande’s not fooling around with anyone at her parents home
and finds little reason to go back to Jimmy’s rattrap apartment. But Jimmy says
he’s got money, produces it, and says they can get a room at a nice hotel. Yolande’s sees the bands money and protests.
But, what Yolande really wants from Jimmy now is a proposal
of marriage. Jimmy’s not quite up to speed on the marriage proposal thing and
says they can get married in the morning after they’ve had a chance to curl
each other’s toes.
You can throw that stuff to the side because Yolande want’s
it all nice and pretty, a societal wedding, with a first class trip to Paris as
a honeymoon all in line with her status.
“You are sounding more and more like your daddy everyday.” - Jimmy
That hits a raw nerve.
Yolande, living her father’s dream, is aware of her social
status in the community. She wants
romance and marriage and Jimmy getting down on one knee, but most importantly taking
care of her status is her birthright.
And the noise inside Jimmy’s head thinks about getting
married without the frilly stuff Yolande’s throwing his way. It’s all about the necessary beats with him,
the sound he’s trying to make to get Yolande to get on the bus with the band
and to travel to Dayton. But at this
point, the night is officially over and knock me a kiss turns out to be a small
peck on the lips.
Meanwhile in the other room Nina (Rosie Lee Hooks) Yolande’s
mother comes in having listened to the entire conversation. Nina and Yolande
don’t see eye to eye on anything. In
fact they are as different as family members can be. And it doesn’t help that Yolande is out with
a strange man, a musician no less, until one and two in the morning.
“I haven’t done anything wrong.” – Yolande
“Didn’t say you did. Just saying
that your father might be interested in knowing about this behavior.” – Nina
Nina tells Yolande that her father will be in the morning
and Yolande says she needs to get her hair done, buy a new dress, etc., all
before she presents herself the following morning. Those are the sounds of Yolande’s scattered
thoughts before they retire for the night.
Later that morning, Countee Cullen (Jason Mimms), is in a
meeting with W.E.B. Du Bois (Ben Guillory), and asks for a favor. He wants Du Bois to write an acknowledgement to
a group of people so that he can go to Europe to study as a poet for two years
and possibly walk in the footsteps of Shelley and Keats.
W.E.B. Du Bois wants to know how walking in the footsteps of
dead European poets is going to benefit the Negro of the United States.
“You mean besides the obvious contribution to my personal growth as a
poet?” – Countee
Du Bois emphasis on this meeting suggests that Countee, not
being married doesn’t look right, and that he should be looking for a wife. In
this regard Du Bois has got a one-track mind.
He believes that Countee should get married and he knows just the person
for him, his daughter. Of course, being
a very prolix man, and loving the sound of his voice, it takes him quite a
while to get to the point.
But before Du Bois has a chance to ask, his daughter Yolande
and his wife Nina interrupt the meeting.
It’s obvious that W.E.B. dotes on Yolande and even has a nickname for
her, “Ouchie”. Still, Nina is not shy
about ratting on their daughter being out until two and three in the morning
with another young man.
Yolande downplays her relationship to Jimmy.
“I’m tellin’ ya Daddy, he’s just a friend. Somebody I met through Lenora.” – Yolande
Yolande says she only went out with him because she was
bored, but since Countee is there in the room, she says she would love to go
out with him. Sending Nina into a tizzy that proclaims that that Yolande is
shameless. But, it is on this day that
Countee asks Yolande out to dinner.
A few days later Yolande is getting ready to go out with
Countee with help from her friend Lenora (Ashlee Olivia). Yolande tell Lenora that she doesn’t care for
Jimmy or his lifestyle and that she is interested in Countee. But Lenora says things are a bit peculiar
with Countee and his family. Still Yolande like’s him because he’s a poet,
romantic, and that she doesn’t like Jimmy with groping hands, poking around, nasty
stuff.
“I don’t know what kind of sex you having but sound like you doing
something wrong.” – Lenora
Charles Smith has written a fascinating play about characters trying
to find their own voice. And while
others may have different interpretations of the play, the idea of finding your
own voice speaks to me. Jimmy Lunceford uses his voice to get his love and to
create a sound that will have the money calling. W.E.B Du Bois, a man who has a
voice, but uses his to dramatically influence the voices of others, his
daughter and the poet. (To silence the voice of the newspaper by a very
powerful political figure is a very interesting idea and significant in today’s
day and age.) Yolande lives her father’s voice and has yet to touch her own
vocal reality. And Nina’s voice has been cut short by her husband with one
word, “wife”. The poet can only express
his love on paper without giving the real voiced truth of his affections. It is
this mixture of sounds and voices that resonate with me within the play.
Dwain A. Perry,
the director, does some very nice work.
But there are elements from this show missing, mostly having to clean up
relationship problems and having to define characters to take them to another
level. The first scene in the office between Countee and Du Bois needs another
layer of action and characterization.
Countee was very passive and we need to see more of the man in this
scene. And I wanted a little more creative spirit in the opening of the second
act. It is at this point Yolande is at the
end of her emotional rope, needing to confide in her unresponsive mother to
find a way to touch base with someone who is not even in the park. Still she should keep trying. But, lying on the couch during that scene
accomplishes little. (Harold Clurman was clear about having a through line that
was concise and creative to give a director a stronger focal point from which
to work and with that sets the conflict to a greater dramatic effect.) Still, this was a very nice job.
Countee Cullen is a poet, and an intellectual, an alumnus of
New York University and Harvard, a very interesting man to boot. But in Jason
Mimms portrayal he comes off rather shy uninteresting, hardly a man who can
put two words together when it comes to his personal life. His sexual interest lies elsewhere when we
discover his wife leaves him on the second week of their honeymoon and he wants
to go off with a male companion to Paris, France. But we don’t see this character life in Mimms
characterization. Mimms, in the first
scene, lets the other character control the scene without giving his
perspective or the character’s peculiarities. In order to set the stage for the later scenes
to work, we need to see this in the life of the character. Still, there was a lot of good work in Mimms
performance with only a few things to add.
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| L - R Toyin Moses, Rosie Lee Hooks, Ben Guillory, Jason Mimms |
Ben Guillory has
a very distinctive voice as W.E.B. Du Bois.
Du Bois was 5’ 5” and Guillory standing a foot taller takes command of a
man who was small but had a very powerful voice. Du Bois had tunnel vision when
it came to turning out his vision of the world.
And even when that world collapses he is there putting his positive spin
to his voice. Guillory gives a very nice performance.
Nina Du Bois is played by Rosie Lee Hooks. This is a
very interesting characterization, almost sedate but she manages to get her
point across no matter how much she is silenced by her overbearing husband and
her demanding daughter. They all think
she needs a brain doctor, but what she really needs is to have someone listen
to her words. They are good words that
gives the ending a surprising lift. This
is very understated but marvelous role for Hooks.
I’ve seen Toyin Moses
who plays Yolande Du Bois in one other production and I enjoyed her performance
in both. Yolande is caught in the sound of her father’s world unable to find a
way to escape and that is her conflict. There is more to be had in the
character of Yolande but finding the thing that defines the character can be
tricky and I’m not sure it was found. Getting ready for her date with the poet,
trying to communicate with her mother in the beginning of the second act,
getting the weight of her marriage off her shoulders as her mother really lays
the guilt trip on her about the wedding, the baby, and her wifely duties. All
that makes for dramatically strong conflict and should be dealt in a creative
way.
Keir Thirus gives
a remarkable strong performance as Jimmy Lunceford, a bandleader trying to find
his own way, with his own voice, and his own rhythm. Thirus gives this character a dramatic voice,
one of ambition and strength. The only
thing the character hasn’t figured out yet is how to control his out of control
thoughts and the way you speak to a sophisticated lady. Still, Thirus gave a astonishing
performance.
Ashlee Olivia is
terrific as Lenora, the friend who cannot tell a lie and lets it all hang out
when it comes down to human nature. Lenora is the connect to things that are
love. She understands the realities of what a woman and a man wants and she is
happy to express her view whether they want it or not. Lenora just hangs around, in the slight case,
that someone should become free. Olivia
gives a marvelous, funny, and nuanced performance that should not be missed.
Jovan Adepo, Petal’d Avril, and Shon Fuller are understudies who did not perform on the night I was
there.
Tom Meleck was
responsible for the terrific Scenic Design, a two level set, in a Harlem
brownstone and I also enjoyed the onstage projections of New York.
Also Naila Aladdin
Sanders was the Costume Designer for which the characters were marvelously
dressed to the period.
Other member of this crew are as follows:
Production Stage Manager – John Freeland, Jr.
Assistant Stage Manager – Melvin Ishmael Johnson
Lighting Design – Sammie
Wayne IV
Music/Sound Design – Gilbert
Glenn Brown
Prop Master – Melvin
Ishmael Johnson
Graphic Design – Kathie
Foley-Meyer
Production Photographer – Tomoko Matsushita
Publicist – Phillip
Sokoloff
Development Director – Judith
Bowman
Robey Office Manager – Marti
Newbold
Lighting Technician – Josia
Davis
Projection Technician – Corwin
Evans
Multimedia Consultant – Fritz
Davis
Set Construction Team – Colin
Beck, Mark L. Colbenson, Matthew Greene, Christopher Ryan Litten
Multimedia Elements provided by: digital theatre technologies
Run! Run! And take
someone who loves love, jazz, and the right to free expression.
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