BWW Reviews: MR. JOY Heels the Sole at City Theatre

When Tangela Large first takes the stage in City Theatre's production of Daniel Beaty's Mr. Joy, I was prepared for the worst. Dancing to Macklemore's "Thrift Shop," Large begins the show as sassy preteen Clarissa. Immediately, my heart sank- visions of Lily Tomlins past, and of Crazy-Eyes from Orange Is the New Black danced in my head. But then, something happened. Clarissa's watch alarm went off, reminding her to take her AIDS medication. Not only did the whimsy become less cloying at this point, but the story began to develop into something more than a character sketch.

Mr. Joy takes the standard one-actor show mold, with character sketches united by a common theme, and turns it into a narrative form. Clarissa's interlude sparks a series of connections bringing together eight other unique individuals, young, old, black, white and Chinese, inhabiting a certain area of Harlem on the verge of gentrification. The central element linking all nine stories is the presence of an old Chinese shoe repairman, the titular Mr. Joy, whose shop was the scene of a recent robbery. The reverberations of this crime impact everyone from trophy girlfriend Rebecca, to social reformer grandmother Bessie, to James, a homeless man with a mysterious past and unusual pair of shoes. As prime real estate in Clarissa and Bessie's neighborhood is bought up by primarily Chinese investors from out of town, racial and socioeconomic tensions rise between the groups, leading to a series of seemingly unrelated events that bring all the characters in the story together.

In her role as storyteller and inhabitant of these nine individuals, Tangela Large is a revelation. As the show goes on and the monologue form blurs into interactions between the varied characters, Large slips seamlessly from one to another with simple and indicative changes of posture, voice and positioning of her sweater. None of the characters ever seem like racial or social stereotypes, which is a feat of both Large's performance and Beaty's writing, as the three different racial groups have to be immediately evident from voice and dialogue alone. The transition from John Lee, stuffy and uptight Chinese-American real estate agent, to rich white socialite Rebecca, to black Republican mogul Clifford, all within a series of shorter scenelets, is a seriocomic master stroke.

Beaty balances the drama and comedy in his piece well, weighing down some of the sillier, and occasionally surreal, material with heartfelt moments of pathos and righteous anger. The play's ending feels a little abrupt, crashing suddenly to a halt without much time to process, but the final monologue, from Clarissa, is truly moving. Every character in the show has something to cling to, giving their life some semblance of meaning and coherence, whether it's religion, business, family, a skill, a gang, or simply a beloved pair of shoes. But despite these myriad variations, and the little mistrusts and big hatreds that separate them, in the end, these characters are much more alike than they could ever be different.

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