Nai Fairweather as Sara and Toddra Brunson as Luanne in New City Players’ Confederates (Photos by Kevin Ondarza)
By Bill Hirschman
The complex confluence of resonating past and present in Dominque Morisseau’s dense brilliant script interweaves with strong performances in New City Players’ well-titled Confederates.
Depicting plantation slaves seeking freedom in one set of scenes alternating with modern-day Black academics seeking a way forward, Confederates asks a score of questions.
Focusing on African-Americans but challenging all ethnicities, it queries how far we’ve come, how far we have to go, where are we now, what has or hasn’t changed, what have we inherited and what have we done with it. Directly, it asks what was the size of the old challenge and what is the size and shape of the new one.
Melded into those overarching cores are a dizzying freight train of individual issues to measure including (take a deep breath) racism, professional bias, gender bias, lasting prejudice, sexism, the nature of scholarship, the demands of truthful philosophy, institutional power, sexual domination and privilege.
For instance, our tenured political science professor Sandra is dealing with a surprising range of reactions to her wearing a Black Lives Matter T-shirt amid a structured world of academia.
And it should be noted that for all this drama, Morisseau has threaded wry sarcasm and dry wit throughout.
The arguably brilliant, but arguably difficult aspect is the whizzing torrent of ideas being delivered at flash flood speeds. There is no way to receive, let alone consider, let alone process it in its entirety. The mass is so profoundly detailed that you have to wonder if the playwright and this production intentionally care whether you get it all or not. Or… is that the point?
So, we have Sandra (Rita Cole) opening with a lecture to her students (us). But she is deeply upset that a pioneering photo of a black slave woman breast nursing a white baby has been photoshopped to put her face on the slave – and then posted on her office door.
Then we fast-backward to meet the field slave Sara (Nai Fairweather) who is secretly nursing a wound in her brother Abner (Denzel McCausland), a runaway slave turned Union soldier hiding with her. He and Sara who both yearn for full freedom begin talking about fleeing to the north.
Then Morisseau’s ingenious stagecraft maneuver is smoothly executed by the cast and adept director Maha McCain. We switch back to Sandra’s office where her most promising student Malik is lobbying for a higher grade on an essay. Malik is portrayed by McCausland – an intentional double-casting device used throughout the evening comparing characters from the past into the present.
Eventually, Sara and Abner’s plans evolve into stealing rebel secrets to hand over to the Union, and further their escape plot. They are aided or complicated or both by Missy Sue (Gemma Berg), the bottomlessly burbling bubbly zany daughter of the plantation owner, and whose husband had deserted her to go to New York City.
Then in a few seconds of scene change, Berg becomes the bottomlessly burbling bubbly zany aide to Sandra, loyal but whose loquacious spiels are not preceded nor predicated on sensitivity or common sense.
Then back to plantation where house slave Luanne (Toddra Brunson) is trying to uncover whatever Sara is concealing. Then Brunson transforms into Jade, the only other Black professor in the college and who is seeking Sandra’s endorsement for advancement.
The story lines advance so that past-present echoes turn in on themselves as Sandra tries to navigate the elements of both times colliding.
The tight quarters of this intimate stage reinforce the sense of themes overlapping – Sara’s tale influencing Sandra’s.
So here’s the asterisk: Something is lost as the production tries to balance brisk pacing to the detriment of clear enunciation needed to communicate Morisseau’s insights to the audience. For instance, Missy Sue and Candice have clearly been directed to effusively babble so fast that only the actors know everything she’s saying. Perhaps that’s the point, but Morisseau has given those two plenty of crucial aspects to get across. We must stress that this is clearly not the actress’ fault.
Part of this is Morisseau’s fault, part of it is McCain’s rhythm as she works hard, maybe too hard, to jam all this into 95 minutes. (Yet, in its 2022 debut off-Broadway it ran 90 minutes.)
For instance, I swear that the penultimate explanation for that motivating element of how the photo got posted on Sandra’s door was indecipherable for this patron.
Sometimes, lengthy speeches came off as speeches. But many other times, the power-infused emotions delivered by the actors and shaped by McCain in these passages are moving intellectual venting from a character’s soul. And sometimes, Morisseau’s intellectual debates border on lyricism.
Further, Morrisseau, McCain and the cast create complex characters who convincingly prove that no one is quite who we think they are early on.
Speaking of the cast, what a pleasure to see veteran actress Cole (A Raisin in the Sun, Black Santa, Morrisseau’s Skeleton Crew, White Guy on the Bus, we could go on and on). Her incisive Sandra has an intellectually strict professional exterior buttressed by Sandra’s extensive hard-won research. But underneath, Sandra is still wrestling with and navigating an uncertain world inside the college and in society at large. Throughout Cole exudes an undeniable vitality that Sandra labors to control as matters become ever more complicated.
Nai Fairweather
Fairweather (roles from Ragtime to Rocky Horror) has just as difficult a role. Sara’s slave knows that you must live a double life: rigorously controlled, even pessimistic, and plans and passions must be hidden beneath a submissive façade. Fairweather succeeds in engaging the audience in that mode, although a few times the actress slips too deeply into the emotionally restrained, sometimes inaudible Sara to land with the audience.
But Fairweather nails Sara’s delightfully murmured comebacks, such as when Missy Sue says paternalistically, “Being a slave is horrible” and Sara mutters with a mixture of sarcasm and disdain “It is.”
The rest of the cast is solid as well, especially in easing from one double-cast role to another, notably McCausland (Fat Ham, Topdog/Underdog, Ben Butler) and Brunson.
McCain is a director-actor and assistant professor the University of Miami’s Theatre Arts Department – which must have added to her enjoyment of the academic politics inside this play. Her hand in crafting this proceeding is evident.
The set by Michael McClain, Jameelah Bailey and JB Green depicts Sandra’s modern office flanked on either side by Sara’s rustic cabin backed by murals of modern day African-American children playing in front of cotton fields – again intentionally compressing the two time periods.
As with such offerings of ideas and concepts, this is the kind of play that makes you want to go to a neighborhood bar and argue it all out for another three hours.
Confederates from New City Players, performing through July 27 at Island City Stage, 2304 N. Dixie Hwy, Wilton Manors. 95 minutes, no intermission. Thursday-Saturday 8 p.m.; Saturday-Sunday 3 p.m. Tickets are $40-45 online at https://newcityplayers.org/confederates. For student and group discounts email the box office at boxoffice@newcityplayers.org or call (954)-376-6114.
Weekend Wine Downs! Is a “casual and structured time of reflection, conversation, and libations” after the Friday and Saturday night performances where patrons can discuss the questions, themes, and ideas of the play with each other and members of the creative team.
Sunday Talkbacks! “For those looking to go a little deeper on the process of bringing a contemporary play to life and step into New City Players’ theater-making process, join the cast and creative team after every Sunday performance for an interactive and engaging talkback.”
Rita Cole as Sandra
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