Review: AN OCTOROON
By Toby Zinman
For the Inquirer
Where to begin? A knockout production of An Octoroon, by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins and directed mightily by Joanna Settle, has just opened at the Wilma Theater.
But it's not exactly by Jacobs-Jenkins, but rather radically reimagined and adapted from a 19th century melodrama by Dion Boucicault called The Octoroon. So this is a contemporary play—note the An rather than the The-- about theater history. Boucicault's play is about slaves on a plantation in the Deep South—this is Tara territory—and is thus about racial injustice (radical in itself since the original play predates the Emancipation Proclamation); there are wondrous moments when the melodrama carries us away as we fall for the sentimental plot. Then Jacobs-Jenkins' radical play takes over; it, too, is about racial injustice and the legacy of the ante-bellum South. But like most contemporary plays about serious issues, it's not only serious but very funny.
The actors—and this is a superb cast—double and triple roles, and each reappearance grows in significance. A black actor wears whiteface; an Asian actor wears blackface; a white actor, playing an Indian, wears redface. Most startling is the image of one of the slaves holding her baby; the baby is played by a blonde doll wearing blackface. Taysha Canales, Jaylene Clark Owens and Alina John are hilarious as the uptalking, smart-mouthed very now-sounding slaves.
The three central roles are the 21st century playwright (telling us how hard a time he's having writing this play and then getting it produced), a liberal Southern gentleman just returned from Paris, and a murderous Southern slaveowner, and are all played by the remarkable James Ijames. They each have their own costume, wig, and accent, and he switches among them with lightening agility. The scene where the two 19th century men fight with each other at a slave auction—first slaps, then knives—is stunning: he is literally and figuratively fighting with himself, enacting the white man's dilemma. Only Ijames is black.
An octoroon is someone one eighth black, enough to classify a person as a slave, and enough to make it impossible and illegal for the Southern gentleman who loves her to marry her. Campbell O'Hare is lovely in the role, never violating the melodramatic circumstance of her character. In contrast is the Southern belle played by Maggie Johnson with a wink; Johnson just gets better and better, using her icy blondeness to great advantage. The excellent Ed Swidey plays Boucicault, and the Indian and the auctioneer. Justin Jain plays both an old broke-back slave and a young boy.
Oh, wait! I forgot to tell you about the band onstage in the middle of all this multi-layered drama: ILL DOOTS ranges from hip-hop to delicate, creating music that defies the theatrical rules of sound track: they are live and very present.
But wait, there's more! two real chickens, live and onstage. And a large, surreal, rabbit. Aaron Bell plays the rabbit; the chickens play themselves.
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Wilma Theater, Broad & Spruce Sts. Through April 10. Tickets $10-25.
Information: 215-546-7824 or wilmatheater.org