Wandachristine/Photo: Michael Brosilow
Beauty’s daughter is named Diane. Diane doesn’t love anyone—she always does what she calls “the slide” and gets the hell out of the way of any feelings that might come too strong or dark. She is not, she needs you to know, a “punk-ass bitch.” She listens to jazz and writes poetry in an apartment with a portrait of Rimbaud on the wall. It’s starting to look like it might be a long night —but, try as she might, Diane can’t keep the ghosts of the past from her door.
The single-actor play presents a challenge to both performer and audience to invest in an evening that hinges entirely on the appeal of a stranger, when most of us wouldn’t even spend that much time on the phone with our mothers. Dael Orlandersmith’s “Beauty’s Daughter” addresses this formal constraint by leaving us fairly little time with Diane proper. Instead, in a structure reminiscent of Agnes Varda’s “Vagabond,” the play unfolds as a series of monologues by a constellation of East Harlem characters who talk to and about the central figure, who mostly appears as quotation and whose tough posture contrasts with her poems, presented in video projections and voiceover in the interludes.
Wandachristine is a sorceress, transforming herself with ease from closed-off Diane to teenage Papo, addict/ex-musician Louie, nurturing neighbor Mary, sketchy misogynist Anthony and abusive Beauty, a former burlesque dancer whose “built-to-please” body was destroyed by the unwanted appearance of her oversized daughter. Twelve pounds, five ounces at birth or not, Diane remains an enigma or, metatheatrically, a device for memories and encounters. The subject of “Beauty’s Daughter” is East Harlem, its inhabitants and their struggles, which mostly consist of dreams destroyed or deferred—a budding writer who can’t finish his term paper because he’s too busy dealing weed to support his family, a former star struck blind and left shining shoes and panhandling for a living, a young man who now despises the high school sweetheart he married. The one sweet spot is deceased Mary, who reminds us the dead can talk if we listen. (Irene Hsiao)
American Blues Theater at Stage 773, 1225 West Belmont, (773)327-5252, americanbluestheater.com, $19-$49. Through August 5.
Related Stories
Scandal-less: A Review of Five Presidents at American Blues Theater A veteran TV writer turns his attention to the presidency.
The Public Eye: A Review of The Columnist at American Blues Theater RECOMMENDED In a society accustomed to having—or believing it has—twenty-four-hour access to uncensored, to-the-minute information, the exclusion of the New York Times, CNN, LA Times, Politico and BuzzFeed from an off-camera White House press briefing on the twenty-fourth of February was a shocking rebuke to media outlets that do not mouth the pabulum of the current administration and a bullhorn in…
Pioneer Spirit: A Review of Flyin’ West at American Blues Theater At American Blues Theater, Pearl Cleage's stunning historical melodrama remains an essential addendum to the history of American expansion.
A Foustian Bargain: The Absolute Brightness of Leonard Pelkey at American Blues Theater Veteran actor Joe Foust tactfully navigates the emotional landscape of this powerful one-man show about an extraordinary boy and the town that knew him.
American Nightmare: A Review of Welcome to Jesus at American Theater Company This world premiere from Janine Nabers marks Will Davis' most daring directorial work to date at his new home company.
Truth Through Fakery: A Review of Six Characters in Search of an Author at Ghostlight Ensemble RECOMMENDED A play within a play within a play—that’s the vertigo-inducing premise of Pirandello’s anti-theater masterwork. Ever since its 1921 premiere, “Six Characters in Search of an Author” has startled theatergoers for daring to treat the stage not as an illusory world or a mirror to nature but rather as a prism-splintering reality into myriad layers and perspectives. Lacking risers…
