(Credit: Michal Daniel )
Written by Tarell Alvin McCraney
Directed by Tea Alagic
With Brian Tyree Henry, Gilbert Owuor and Elliot Villar
Brotherhood is one of the deepest and richest bonds that men can experience. At the emotional climax of “The Brothers Size” now at the Public, a pair of adults get goofy one night as they lip-synch to Otis Redding. For a magic moment, they’ve regressed to boyhood and the joy on their faces expresses the depth of fraternal love. By the next morning, they’ll never see each other again.
The three shirtless actors only underscore that, despite heavy emotions, “The Brothers Size” is a thoroughly masculine show. Women only seem to exist in memories that the men share—a dead mother, a lost girlfriend, a jailhouse fantasy. Instead, the men focus on work, autos and their attachments to other men. Mechanic Ogun Size (Gilbert Owuor) provides his feckless ex-con brother Oshoosi (Brian Tyree Henry) with a bed and a job, but what Oshoosi really wants is a car. Elegba (Elliot Villar), his pal from the pen, gives him that car but the gift is a trap that Elegba hopes will bind Oshoosi to him.
Though “The Brothers Size” is set in the bayous of southern Mississippi, its plot and names are taken from a West African myth. Playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney does a splendid job of adaptation, balancing archetypal ideas with casual modern dialogue. The final moments, which hinge on Ogun saving his brother by exiling him forever, resembles Greek tragedy in its starkness. But the world McCraney depicts is a hardscrabble one. Among its many victories, the play is powerful indictment of the systematic racism of American justice. Tea Alagic’s simple staging stresses the play’s elemental features. Sometimes she underscores the script’s emotional impact but occasionally she indulges in seemingly empty theatrical gestures. At the top of the show, Villar pours white powder in a large circle to define the stage. It’s a powerful sort of holy invocation (Japanese Noh drama starts every evening with a similar ritual) that prefigures a later trap of Elegba’s. But the staging, having defined the space so explicitly, doesn’t weigh differently the events that occur inside the circle and ones outside of it.
A live drummer (Jonathan Pratt) underscores the staging with African beats. This is appropriate to the mythical origins and Pratt’s superb work adds atmosphere and provides percussive motifs for characters. But it’s a piece of theatrical shorthand that’s incredibly common and close to cliché.
It’s the performances that balance the modern with the ancient. The Peter Brook-like ritualistic approach merely echoes a more compelling device of McCraney’s. He has actors deliver stage directions to the audience in a deadpan—“Oshoosi grins”—before they enact them. This convention returns the difficult lives of three black men to the level of myth by giving their actions a sense of pre-destiny and harkening back to its roots in oral tradition.
It’s rare to find a playwright as young as McCraney —just 27 years old—with such a confident voice. He creates a language and style that’s unique and individual. He depicts strong emotions without irony. With just three characters, he delivers an entire town onto the stage, with a history, a geography and a community. The play is taut, elemental, full of compassion and impossible to envision in any other medium. McCraney speaks with a specifically theatrical voice. Hopefully, “The Brothers Size” is the first of many great works that he’ll write.
"The Brothers Size" runs through December 23rd at the Public Theater (425 Lafayette St. between Astor Pl. and E. 4th St.). For tickets call 212-967-7555.
Add a comment