Review: Dominique Morisseau's SKELETON CREW, a Vivid Portrait of Urban Collapse

The pounding beats and rhythms that open Dominique Morisseau's excellent workplace drama, SKELETON CREW, are certainly catchy, and the hip hop performance of dancer Adesola Osakalumi that accompanies them is fun to watch, but his repetitive movements, at first symbolic of the assembly line efficiency of the play's factory setting, become, as story progresses, a reflection of the unvarying rhythms of life that suck the soul out of its laborers.

By the time the story is done, Osakalumi will represent the advanced machinery that can save the crumbling auto industry by making humans less necessary.

Following DETROIT '67 and PARADISE BLUE, the final third of Morisseau's trilogy about her hometown, is an engrossing character study of types that add up to a vivid portrait of urban collapse.

Taking place around 2008, the setting is a break room of the city's last surviving exporting auto plant, appropriately realized with unkempt industrial dreariness by designer Michael Carnahan, where makeshift family bonds help the workers get through the lingering possibility of sudden unemployment.

Mother figure Faye (wonderfully touching Lynda Gravatt) has been with the company for twenty-nine years and plans to retire when she hits thirty and receives a significant jump in benefits. Streetwise Dez, played with a combination of hustler charm and survival-driven aggression by Jason Dirden, is stocking up on overtime hours to one day open his own body shop. He's sweet on the pregnant and unmarried Shanita (Nikiya Mathis).

The compassionate foreman Reggie (Wendell B. Franklin), on the low rung of management, tries to protect the jobs of his crew while his higher-ups are looking to cut expenditures in order to avoid a total closure. He attempts to maintain a sense of normalcy and a continuation of productivity in an atmosphere where everyone faces an uncertain future.

Morisseau's fluid and naturalistic dialogue and the strong work of director Ruben Santiago-Hudson and his fine ensemble add up to an edgy and engrossing drama that delivers a solid emotional impact.