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Review
Blue Door
Playwrights Horizons
October 21, 2006
Morgan Wycks
mwycks@nyconstage.org
Tanya Barfield's Blue Door is two one-man shows put together to
demonstrate the distancing effects that assimilation has on a middle class
African-American, Lewis, who has established and distinguished himself in the
difficult milieu of university mathematic professors. His "one man show" is
about ignoring the million man march, his white wife threatening divorce because
of his complacency concerning race, and his adversarial relationship with his
father. The other one-man show is about Lewis's ancestors, Simon, Rex and Jesse
and the hardships they endured through the days of slavery, carpetbaggers and
segregation. The stories and their themes we've heard before and disconnection
from one's roots we've also heard before. Though Ms. Barfield for the most part
capably evokes these situations with acuity, we wait for a fresh view to arrive.
That it doesn't is a let down and the point of the blue door (a shield against
evil and ghosts, and therefore possibly one's past) loses impact.
The deep sonorous voice of Reg E. Cathey renders Lewis' complacency accurately
but doesn't leave much room for anything else and Mr. Cathey often looks
uncomfortable delivering the more heated passages of his side of the story.
Andre Holland in his several, and admittedly more showy, roles is a dynamic
presence and a talent to keep an eye on. He keeps the play moving and when he
engages his partner, Mr. Cathey must rise to meet his demands.
Leigh Silverman doesn't solve the "my turn -your turn" structure of the piece
and one desperately wants the actors to occupy the other's space just to see
what would happen. The itch in Mr. Holland's performance to do just that at
least exhibits the aching pull that the past should have on the present.
...end
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