Theatre--Review (Kimberly Johnson-Nagle at Theatre 810)

It all came back to me in a flash. Try to imagine a nerdy sixteen-year-old junior in high school who knew few girls from his own town and wanted to go to prom. As a sophomore, I had won a trip to Washington D.C. with twenty other Louisiana teenagers, one of whom was named Jennifer. She was—and still is, for all I know—a vibrant, beautiful, giving human being. Though she lived at least two hours away, I wanted to go with her to the prom, and I invited her. I was sitting at the living room counter while my mother was preparing dinner, and I, a white teen, asked aloud what I thought was an innocent question, “I wonder what people would think if I took a black girl to the prom?” My mother’s chilling response was “You had better not.”

All those memories and the bitter reactions that followed surged through me in the one-act play Colorless, part of two plays presented under the title A Woman’s Journey at Theatre 810. Kimberly Johnson-Nagle has penned two fine plays, but the first one was her best. In Colorless, Kay (Bria Hobgood) and William (Cris Matochi) are celebrating a year together and are finally revealing their relationship completely to their parents. By completely, they mean they are finally exposing the biracial aspect of their relationship—she’s African American, and he’s Caucasian—but neither of the parents are aware of this crucial fact. Kay’s mother Daphne (Linda Bernard) is naturally reticent about this relationship, even more so that her daughter would hide this from her. What results is rather heart-breaking, made more so by the honest performances from the three on stage. Linda Bernard delivers lines crisply, and with a mere wave of her hand, she is not only dismissing the glass of wine William is offering her, but also dismissing this interloper to her life. Bria Hobgood has great facial expressions, especially when showing hurt as her mother’s throws verbal jabs at her. But the breakout performance, a term Cody Daigle used to describe Matochi’s work in Kaleidoscope, belongs again to Cris Matochi, who makes the audience believe in his love for Kay. When describing Kay’s beautiful qualities, Matochi says to Daphne, “I know that it had to come from you.” That kind of earnestness is impossible to fake, and it makes the ending even more shattering.

The second one-act play, The Female Being, is not as strong as Colorless, but it has its merits. This play comes across as rather expository, with women on stage celebrating their femininity by endlessly talking. Think The View but with an African American cast, though Kristie Rose Trahan was a white woman in the cast. Ironically, here were five women on stage praising the female body, but actually they were engaging in somewhat destructive actions toward each other. When the story finally reaches its dramatic conclusion with a strong performance by Sheryl Ned, The Female Being hits its groove, and the women truly bond in an uplifting final scene.

There were elements of both plays that undermined some of the believability. Cris Matochi’s ring was simply too large to be credible, and it made people laugh at a moment when his acting is just heart-breaking. A more modest item would have been the perfect ending to an entrancing play. Plus someone should have picked up the box which stayed on the floor as a major distraction for the entire second play. Most of the blocking was fine, except that in Colorless, this meant walking either stage left or stage right, but rarely in the center. Bria Hobgood as director chose good costumes, but her Southern accent in The Female Being was unnecessary. And Theatre 810 is an open stage, so talking backstage during The Female Being was slightly distracting. Though I had no problem with the dance scene between the two plays, I question its effectiveness at bridging the two plays.

But the acting, the extraordinary acting often makes people forgive a great deal. It also helped that Kimberly Johnson-Nagle’s plays are nicely written with some genuine situations. When Linda Bernard acidly comments, “Where are the good white folks?” when Matochi’s parents don’t show, he devastates the mother with a short monologue about Kay’s wonderful qualities. He then says that he loves Kay, and adds, “Why can’t that be enough for you?” I wish it had been enough for me twenty-seven years ago when racism reared its ugly head in my life. Nagle’s plays give me a little hope that things might have advanced, while simultaneously showing that decades may pass and things can still stay the same.
---Vincent P. Barras