- By Dan Veaner
- Entertainment
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The Brothers Size only runs through November 7 at the Kitchen Theatre. Run, don't walk, to grab a ticket to this amazing show before it sells out. Playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney graduated from a Miami neighborhood of drugs and violence, then from DePaul University with a degree in acting, and from Yale with a playwriting degree. Some say that he has taken up the mantle of his Yale mentor, August Wilson. Unlike Wilson's realism, however, McCraney calls on Yoruba mythology to draw his character's daily struggles into the wider cosmos.
In the play, Ogun Size (Ogun: the Yoruba god of iron) runs an auto mechanics shop in a tiny Louisiana town. He has taken in his brother, Oshoosi Size (god of hunting and wandering), who has just returned from a stint in prison. There, Oshoosi met Elegba (god of the crossroads, the trickster), who draws him back into trouble.
The Brothers Size is an old story of brotherly love and loss, made newly strong by the astonishing theatricality of McCaney's vision. Characters dance, narrate their action, and are often accompanied by musical signatures.
The design team brought this vision to life. Sound designer Lesley Green provided authentic and simple drum and rattle music. Scenic and lighting designer David L. Arsenault created hanging evocations of windows and Spanish moss, along with a bunch of solid car tires that become tables, beds, bureaus and, of course, a car.
Director Jesse Bush has cast each character with his own visual signature: strong, blocky Samuel Smith as Ogun; smaller, lively Mack Exilus as Oshoosi; and lithe, charming Darian Dauchan as Elegba. Within this, each actor creates a complex, nuanced performance. These are not just mythic or theatrical types. No villains or heroes here; just men trying to live as best they can in an unforgiving world.
Bush has also orchestrated the play well. It moves from quiet talk to shouting, from humor to rage to sadness, with the same intricate shading that the actors bring to their roles.
At one moment, watching the men dance, I had an icky vision of that "happy dancing people" racist stereotype. But then I realized that this dancing is the real thing. Like the script and this production, it reveals the strength of the old roots as well as the new branches.
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