Review: ZOOMAN AND THE SIGN at Avenue Blackbox Theatre

Rochester’s Avenue Blackbox Theatre is currently presenting “Zooman and the Sign”, an intense and challenging piece of theatre touching on topical themes, one that is worthwhile for audiences to grapple with and one that will leave you pondering long after you exit the theatre back onto Joseph Avenue.

“Zooman and the Sign” is an Obie Award-winning play by Charles Fuller, first produced Off-Broadway in 1980 and revived in 2009 at the Signature Theatre Company. Set in Philadelphia in 1979, Zooman (Anderson Allen) senselessly terrorizes his community. When he kills a 12-year-old Black girl on the street, all witnesses refuse to talk. Bereaved and infuriated, the dead girl's father (Wallace House) posts a sign accusing the entire community of cowardice in the face of escalating violence. This act triggers intense pushback from friends and neighbors, and an examination of themes including violence, race, poverty, mass incarceration, and the degradation of community.

“Zooman and the Sign” is not a play I had any familiarity with before ABT’s production; like most, I was much more familiar with Fuller’s better-known Tony-winning “A Soldier’s Play.” It’s easy to see why “Zooman” isn’t brought to the stage terribly often; it’s difficult subject matter, grim (almost relentlessly so) with very little tonal shift or comic relief. It’s a play that demands a tremendous amount of empathy from the audience, and it has stretches that move quite slowly (understandably; after all, grief is one of the play’s central themes). That said, ABT’s cast does an admirable job of capturing the play’s complexity and bringing characters to life that are complicated and deeply flawed.

The cast’s standout is without a doubt the play’s namesake, played by a spry and confrontational Andersen Allen. Zooman is, of course, not a sympathetic character by any means. He’s a cold-blooded killer who offers no remorse for the senseless murder of a child, and puts his life of violence and crime on blast for the whole audience, at times doubled-over from laughter at the mere memory of the terror he has caused. And yet, Andersen is able to inject a palpable sense of empathy into Zooman, showing the audience that—while he is not worthy of forgiveness—his origin story is at least partly to blame for the man he has become, an upbringing that turned him into an icy and unsympathetic criminal after a lifetime of poverty, abuse, racial profiling, and wrongful incarceration.

The thematic and literary complexity of “Zooman and the Sign” was present in ABT’s production, which at times suffered from pacing challenges and a lack of urgency. While the scenes featuring Zooman himself—as well as some of the action sequences—were gripping, the play features long stretches of heavy dialogue and character interactions that would benefit from a shot of adrenaline. And while Zooman, Rueben, and Rachel (Ashona Pulliam) benefit from rich character development throughout the play, others—namely Emmett (Robin Brown) and Victor (Antonio “Sight” Muniz) Tate—are seemingly intriguing characters that are robbed of any meaningful exploration, a fault of the playwrighting and not the production.

Overall, “Zooman and the Sign” is a thought-provoking piece of theatre tackling complex sociopolitical issues, many of which are still topical 40 years since it first hit the stage. It’s playing at Rochester’s Avenue Blackbox Theatre until September 24th, for tickets and more information click here.

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