Theatre--Review

Talking Bones, by Shay Youngblood, the latest production of Omni Artiste, opened Friday, February 6th, at Cite des Arts. It will continue the nights of February 7th, 13th and 14th at 7:30, with 3 PM matinees on February 8th and 15th. Seats can be reserved by calling the theater at 291-1122.

The play has an interesting pedigree. Ms. Youngblood won the 1993 Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award while a student at Brown University. This award, supported by the Kennedy Center Education Department, is presented for the best student-written plays of the African-American experience. In addition to a stipend, Youngblood also served an internship at the National Playwrights Conference at the O’Neill Theater Center. Incidentally, Hansberry herself was the youngest playwright ever to win the New York Drama Critics Award for A Raisin in the Sun.

Briefly, in Youngblood’s words: “I grew up in a house where the elders heard voices and it was understood that these voices were the voices of the ancestors…..So I started writing this play about women who hear voices, how these three women respond to their inner voices and how they respond to the ancestors.”

Director Andrew D. Hunter II, together with his co-director Jimmy Hodgrinson, have erected a fancifully interesting set in record time, and put together the sort of cast that is a trademark of Omni Artiste, consisting of talented regulars and promising apprentices.

Ruth ( Gethsemane “Gos” Campbell) is the matriarch, with a booming voice who talks to the dead. You don’t want to anger her. Her daughter Bay Bay (Gale Whiting) wants to get away from this house with all its ghosts and jumps at the chance to be lured by Mr. Fine (an unctuous Brian E. Taylor), who may be up to no good. Elia ( the ever charming Bria Hobgood) , Ruth’s granddaughter, communes with the ancestors. Rounding out the cast is Oz, a homeless young man played by Nicholas Marchan, who also hears the “talking bones”. Wait a minute! Wasn’t Nicholas a senile octogenarian in Spirit North? Now there’s an actor who will never be out of work.
---Robert D. Sidman, Ph.D