Review: Seattle Rep's BROWNSVILLE SONG Hits No Good Notes

It's all well and good to want to shine a spotlight on urban violence and inner city gangs through entertainment (theater, film, TV, etc.). It gets the issues out there in the hopes that something might get changed. But as it's been done time and time before, if you're going tell another one of these kinds of stories then have something new to say and tell it well. Unfortunately the current production at the Seattle Rep, "brownsville song (b-side for tray)" fails in both respects with bad writing, bad direction and bad performances amounting to a show that felt it was important but came across as cliché.

Based on a true story, Kimber Lee's play focuses on Tray (Chinaza Uche), a young African American man living in the New York borough, Brownsville. Unlike many of his friends he's not involved in gangs, gets good grades, is a champion boxer and has his eye on college. With a Father who was shot years before and a Stepmother (Vanessa Kai) who abandoned him, he lives with his Grandmother Lena (Denise Burse) and his sister Devine (alternately played by Catherine King Karman and Leah DeLynn Dual). Tray works and trains and studies until the fateful day when he's gunned down for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

It's unfortunately a pretty standard tale but even more unfortunate is that it's just not written well. There are so many contrivances and plot holes in the play that I found it confusing as to what was happening at times or why I should care about these characters. For example, Tray is gunned down while talking with an old friend Junior (Tyler Trerise) who is involved in the gangs. He has this clandestine conversation with him at one point making us wonder what's the whole truth about their relationship. But then later find that he was there talking to him when the shooting happened because he was returning a video game Junior lent him. And the clandestine conversation that happened is never explained. Then there's the character of the Stepmother who until about half way through the play I thought was his ex-girlfriend. But no, it's his Stepmother. His Stepmother who used to teach 9th grade English until drugs and alcohol ruined all that where upon she abandoned Tray and Devine. But now she's out of rehab and so Tray's coach feels that this woman would be the perfect person to tutor Tray and help him with his college application essay. Um, what?!? And if all these plot holes weren't bad enough, Lee's dialog is at best cliché and at worst unnatural. Plus she has a habit throughout the play of repeatedly having unfinished sentences. The characters would be talking and then interrupt themselves as if this were hard for them to say or something. That's fine every now and again but not multiple times in every scene. It felt as if Lee didn't know what she wanted to say either.

The direction from Juliette Carrillo is almost non-existent leading to some painful performances and horrible pacing. The actors do not come across as comfortable with the dialog especially the hackneyed urban slang that Lee jams into the play and no one comes across as listening to anything anyone else is saying, but simply waiting for their next line so the pace suffers greatly. Plus, there's a little actor's trick when you are presented with an interrupted line that you, as the actor, figure out what the next few words might be so as to not sound like you stopped speaking because the script told you to. It seems like these actors have never heard of this technique, as those interrupted lines felt completely unnatural and read. And since there were so many it really weighed down the show. But with the amount of those kinds of lines if they had attempted to finish the lines in their heads it would have amounted to writing a whole other show.

There is just so much confusion going on in this play right down to the title, "brownsville song (b-side for tray)". B-side of what? What song? There is never a mention of any song or tape in the show so to reference a b-side of something makes no sense especially since the main character is probably too young to even know what a b-side is. The only time we ever see him listening to music it's on an MP3 player and MP3s to not have b-sides.

But the biggest mystery of the play is how did the Rep and director Carrillo let this happen? Carrillo directed one of my all times favorites pieces I've ever seen anywhere, "The Brothers Size" so I know she's talented and I know the Rep is better than this. And so with my three letter rating system I'm tempted to give "brownsville song (b-side for tray)" the dreaded WTF as I hold the Rep up to a higher standard but I'll simply give it a NAH. A story that is worth our time in a play and production that is not.

"brownsville song (b-side for tray)" performs at the Seattle Rep through April 24th. For tickets or information contact the Seattle Rep box office at 206-443-2222 or visit them online at www.seattlerep.org.

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