World premiere of Geraldine Inoa's "Scraps" at The Flea

Roland Lane (left), Alana Raquel Bowers (bottom center),
Michael Oloyede (top center) and Tanyamaria (right).
the main cast members of Scraps at The Flea
(photo: Hunter Canning)

What we always hear: “Black Male Shot by White Police Officer.” What we never see: how loved ones struggle to cope amidst their anger and grief.

-- from program notes for Scraps

In its new Tribeca home and its fresh new season devoted to "Color Brave" programming, The Flea Theater comes out swinging with Scraps, a psychological drama by LA-based playwright and television writer Geraldine Inoa, directed by Niegel Smith. With a strategy similar to Jackie Sibblies Drury's recent Fairview (Soho Rep), another theater piece examining race in America, Inoa carefully grounds her audience in the familiar before hauling us into bizarre territory. Hard to tell, though, which one hauls with the rougher hand: Fairview's second and third acts seem more cleverly conceptual while Scraps goes full-out surreal nightmare with a menacing Greek tragedy-style chorus.

The 85-minute piece takes place in The Flea's tiny Siggy Theater on a shallow stage not even a leg-stretch away from the audience's first row, a set-up that will only become more engulfing and threatening as this tale of Black urban life and racist police violence proceeds. Inoa introduces us to four main characters--connected by race, culture, neighborhood and personal history--whose interactions become complicated by grief, resentment and fear.

All roles are played by members of the Flea's resident acting troupe, The Bats. We first meet unemployed Jean-Baptiste (Roland Lane) who deftly raps up a bleak, nearly Shakespearean take on the prospects for a Black man under white supremacy. Like his namesake, he's a voice of one crying in the wilderness, and a stern warning.

Inoa quickly--maybe too much so, too stereotypically--gives him a nemesis in the form of Calvin (Michael Oloyede), a London-based college student now home in Bed-Stuy for only a brief visit. Calvin, looking casually-sharp in a way that immediately ticks off Jean-Baptiste, has been able to avoid dealing with the police killing of an unarmed Black man they both knew. Calvin longs to get back in the good graces of Aisha (Alana Raquel Bowers), single mother and young widow of the slain man. Though none too pleased with Calvin either, the alternately sunny, bone-tired and volatile Aisha is susceptible. But her sister Adriana (Tanyamaria) carries the heaviest burden of all, a trauma she tries to conceal with good humor and toughness. Tries and repeatedly fails.

This quartet of skilled actors has energy to burn, particularly Bowers and Tanyamaria who, when they get going with their lines, leave us in the dust, hyperventilating, unable to catch up. Of all, even Jean-Baptiste, Inoa gives the women the best language. But all actors turn on extraordinary ferocity in the final, disturbing developments of the story, which I will not reveal here.

Where Sibblies Drury concluded Fairview with a panoramic view of white privilege, boldly implicating her audience, Inoa maintains focus on the tragedy of unhealed racial trauma passed from generation to generation.

Other cast members: Andrew Baldwin, Bryn Carter

Sets: Ao Li
Costumes: Andy Jean
Lighting: Kate McGee
Sound: Megan Deets Culley
Violence choreography: Michael G. Chin

Scraps continues at The Flea through September 24. For information and tickets, click here.

The Flea Theater
20 Thomas Street, Manhattan
(map/directions)

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Niegel and Todd and ten willing participants

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*****

Niegel Smith and Todd Shalom

Oh. One more thing to celebrate...

Happy 10th anniversary of "artnership" to Niegel Smith and Todd Shalom who opened their latest collaborative gig, Dream State of Affairs, with sly toasts over sparkling cider and an invitation to their watchers to become doers. Presented by The Invisible Dog Art Center in partnership with Shalom's Elastic City, this dream state has a whimsical premise and a spine of steel.

We’ve scored a performance: a where-we-are but in your shoes. There are written prompts that overlap–a set of tasks that form a fairy tale weee invite you to complete.

We’ll play with race, lust, consent, underpaid labor and childhood shit; the cat and the meow. You’ve a choice: consent to be on stage or around it, as you will. We will take care of you.

Not to be overly paranoid, but "we will take care of you" is a promise that can be read different ways, and I ended up relieved that I did not volunteer to be one of ten participants. Sure, I would have gladly held the orange tabby (see photo above) but last night, the second of the two-night run, there was no cat in sight and no meow to be heard.

Instead, there was an orchestral structure involving a score with instructions set up on a semicircle of music stands, precision timing regulated by digital clocks set up around the space. Participants had to read and then leave their timed instructions on the stands and enter the performance space just at the right moment to not strand one or another of their fellow players working off their own set of directions and schedules.

In one of a few efforts to ease any pre-performance jitters, though, Shalom told his willing participants, "There's absolutely nothing you can do wrong tonight. Whatever you do is the right thing to do."

Well, that's not exactly the case. In one instance, action had to be stopped and clocks reset for another go with a guy, stretched across a broken-legged sofa, saying "What if nothing is too serious to be joked about?" And there remained the possibility that someone from the audience-audience (unwilling non-participants) might stop the proceedings and the clock (by calling "Hold" into a dangling mic) to critique what had gone before.

And yes, that happened, although only once, the unwilling being particularly unwilling. But when it happened, it was a doozy.

One of the players, to the shock and amusement of the audience, had just finished pelting the wall and windows with half a dozen eggs. Smith showed up with a bucket of water and sponges, but one woman wasn't having it. She got up and took the mic.

"I want to see the white man clean up," she said, indicating Shalom and excavating what could have been buried deep in the minds of others. I chuckled and snapped because--you GO, girl!--that was top of mind for me. This directive from the audience-audience required a momentary negotiation between Smith and Shalom, but they managed it.

Now, mind you, that was a white woman. Most of the audience, unsurprisingly, was white. Most, I'm guessing, were artist types, performers even--which is why the willing participants seemed to look like they could well handle both the surreal theatrical activities of Dream State of Affairs and its controlled, highly-choreographed unfolding.

But one player, a white woman, seemed to balk at her next set of directions. She muttered something about not being sure she could do this before approaching one watcher and beckoning for him to come into the performance area. As she came up to me, I motioned towards my notebook, and she got the message.

She moved on, but it was a while before I figured out what was up. She had been instructed to pick out the Black people in the room. All five of us.

Without me, then, her meager haul was four. Once arranged in front of everyone, the Black people found out their fate. Again apologizing under her breath, she ordered them to turn around and stand with their arms against the wall and legs spread while the rest of the players, all of them white, whimpered in guilt. In short order, I swear to you, Smith turned all of this into the Hokey Pokey.

What if nothing is too serious to be joked about, indeed? The places your childhood memories take you? The rough debris of racial history and all the "crazy shit"--to quote Shalom's bio--that happens now? The sensuality and sexuality that only you can define? The struggle to survival and make your work in a tough market?

[Closed] For information on future events at The Invisible Dog, click here.