Things to Do in Miami: The M Ensemble’s “The River Niger”

Miami’s venerable M Ensemble Company was based in 1971, the 12 months earlier than Joseph A. Walker’s The River Niger had its off-Broadway premiere. That first manufacturing by the Negro Ensemble Company gained a “Best Play” Obie Award, transferred to Broadway in 1973, and captured the “Best Play” Tony Award in 1974.

For its Black History Month season opener, M Ensemble has given a brand new technology of actors the prospect to discover and embody this 51-year-old piece of theater historical past.

Still led by Patricia E. Williams and Shirley Richardson, two of its three founders, M Ensemble has continued to complement South Florida’s cultural life with skilled productions of nice Black performs and lesser-known (or much less typically produced) ones. Despite its Tony Award, The River Niger falls into the latter class. It is resonant and related however not enduringly impactful like A Raisin within the Sun, Ceremonies in Dark Old Men, or A Soldier’s Play, for instance.

Staged by Carbonell Award-winning actor-director André L. Gainey, Walker’s sprawling drama takes place inside a Harlem brownstone that the prolonged Williams household calls residence.

Reflective of its early ’70s period, the script explores points that endure, disturb and hang-out us nonetheless — the sacrificing of goals, expectations we place on our offspring, and the alternative ways Black women and men cope. The fraught, generally tragic relationship between the Black group and regulation enforcement — a narrative that by no means appears to finish — can be a part of The River Niger.

With a number of storylines that intertwine and at a operating time of greater than three hours (a single transient intermission comes greater than two hours into the motion), the manufacturing wants strategic tightening and a faster tempo. The playwright’s system of getting most scenes or segments start with somebody pounding on a door turns into so predictable that you simply begin ready for the subsequent character to reach.

Those 11 characters and the way in which this forged performs them, nonetheless, largely maintain the viewers engaged.

Patriarch John Williams (Chat Atkins, giving one of many strongest performances in his lengthy historical past with M Ensemble) retains meals on the desk and helps his spouse’s prolonged household by portray homes. He discarded his goals of turning into a lawyer however clings to his true ardour: writing poetry. But late within the play, as he delivers the poem that provides The River Niger its title, we expertise the highly effective vestiges of what may need been.

His stalwart, loving spouse Mattie (Jade L. Jones, who radiates a loyal heat) has been complicit in John turning into an alcoholic. She pretends to fuss and maintain him in line, however she is aware of how a lot a lifetime of sacrifice has a value and desires him, in his 60s, to seize all of the happiness he can.

Mattie’s mom, Wilhelmina Brown, performed with masterful comedic aptitude by Carbonell winner Carolyn Johnson-Davis, is there to get in everyone’s enterprise, go judgment and compete together with her son-in-law at sneaking hidden booze. She lives there, however their Jamaica-born next-door neighbor Dr. Dudley Stanton (Keith C. Wade, one other M Ensemble veteran who’s an adept grounding power on this manufacturing), virtually does, popping out and in to commerce joking insults, debate politics, drink, and mortgage John just a little cash when Mattie is not wanting.

Everyone is ready for a homecoming, the return of John and Mattie’s 25-year-old son Jeff (the magnetic Roderick Randle, so adept at conveying Jeff’s quicksilver emotional adjustments) from his time within the U.S. Air Force as a navigator. Among the surprises awaiting Jeff is Ann Vanderguild (Tyquisha Ariel Braynen), a South African-born nurse who met Jeff in Canada and goals to marry him.

Jeff’s outdated Harlem gang is much less welcome, a mix of militants impressed by the Black Power motion and armed thugs able to take what they need. Leader Big Moe Hayes (Jean Hyppolite) needs to attract his lifelong good friend Jeff again into the group’s police-baiting legal life. Jeff is decided to tackle the regulation faculty a part of his father’s deserted dream and alter his group that manner.

Inevitably, tensions mount and explode. The gang members — junkie Skeeter (Martin Davis), sexual predator Chips (Xavier Latorture), and risky Al (Kedar Myers) — convey hazard with them each time they arrive by the door, although Moe’s girlfriend Gail (Nairobi) proves to be a constructive power.

Set designer Mitchell Ost has created three key taking part in areas: a neatly saved front room (set dresser Patricia E. Williams wraps the couch lined in protecting plastic) and a neat kitchen only one step down. An extraordinarily tall staircase resulting in the upstairs bedrooms turns into a part of the motion greater than as soon as, and you’re feeling for Johnson-Davis’s Wilhelmina, who should climb up and are available down it repeatedly.

Richardson and Chasity Hart collaborated on the costumes, making Braynen’s Ann look significantly ’70s stylish. Quanikqua “Q” Bryant’s lighting underscores the emotional content material of Jeff’s eventual confessional about his Air Force expertise, and Marcus Banks threads a subdued but ominous bass by the present.

Something else you need to find out about The River Niger, although, significantly since a variety of younger youngsters had been a part of the opening night time viewers: Walker’s language, which could be poetic and fairly humorous, can be stunning and offensive at occasions.

John and Dudley go at one another verbally, tossing insults, hauling out the n-word, and much, far worse. They’re not mad, simply kidding one another in a nonstop roast, however that is how they do it. The sexual speak and threats among the many youthful characters are equally uncooked. Consider your self warned.

The River Niger nonetheless must gel. The actors have most, however not all, of their traces down. Braynen’s supposed South African accent sounds nothing like one, and Nairobi is just too soft-spoken. More tightening and extra confidence ought to make for a greater expertise for the actors and the viewers.

Walker’s most celebrated play could not have stood the take a look at of time as firmly as A Raisin within the Sun and others. But watching the ultimate scene, taking within the aftermath of a sacrifice as blue and pink police lights whirl exterior, your coronary heart sinks as you acknowledge {that a} half-century later, such tragedies go on and on and on.

– Christine Dolen, ArtburstMiami.com

The River Niger. 8 p.m. Thursday by Saturday and three p.m. Sunday by February 26, on the Sandrell Rivers Theater, 6103 NW Seventh Ave., Miami; 305-200-5043; themensemble.com. Tickets price $36.