AUM provides numerous opportunities for its Theatre students, the latest being for Senior Tiara Staples as director of Dominique Morisseau's Blood at the Root, her first time directing a full production.
Based on an incident at a Louisiana high school, Blood at the Root is a fictionalized account of the ramifications of an assault on a gay White football player by a number of Black students...but it is also a study of relationships, racial double-standards, a [probably] biased legal system, and the impact of the incident on the lives of teenagers coming to grips with the confusing and changing world around them. -- The title references the poem/song "Strange Fruit" made famous by Billie Holiday, and an anthem of the Civil Rights Movement.
It is told in a series of short scenes and monologues on an open stage with minimal rusted set pieces that suggest several locations, and performed by a six member ensemble: Grace Brennan, Sean Godfrey, Grayson Hataway, Bri Myers, Atticus O'Banner, and Michael James Pritchard. -- In its uninterrupted hour and twenty minutes, much of the dialogue is directly addressed to the audience, challenging us to empathize with the characters and their internal and external conflicts.
Ever so gradually, their individual and collective stories intertwine as we follow their changing relationships due to the assault, as they question the assumptions that test friendships, mutual trust, territorialism, and challenges to the status quo.
Ms. Staples directs her cohort in a steady pace that offers a few heightened moments. And there is no doubt in her and her actors' sincerity in inhabiting the characters with naturalistic integrity. This approach has its merits, but too often sacrifices vocal clarity and more precise energy to start and end each scene to optimum effect.
Still, Blood at the Root and its themes is a relevant today as it was in its 2014 debut.
