Remaining Performances:

No more in the 2011 Capital Fringe Festival, because that’s done. But Ellouise Schoettler posts her tour dates on her site.

They say: ”Genealogy Meets Entertainment as 75-year-old storyteller Ellouise Schoettler puts flesh on old family bones to weave this intriguing collage of romance, hunky heroes, love, loss and reunion. Come for fun – leave inspired. Don’t miss this surprise Capital Fringe gem!”

Sophia’s Take:  My Diamond Jubilee, is a title intended to celebrate storyteller Ellouise Schoettler’s 75th birthday this July.  To a great extent this one-woman show is about how she has chosen, so far, to spend her time in life.  Yet, Finding Gus, the show’s other title, may turn out to be more memorable for the audience of Schoettler’s beautifully told story.

Tracing the genealogy of her family is among the endeavors Schoettler has taken on in the past 25 years.  The interest led her on a journey to uncover the details of the life of her late grandfather, Gus Keasler, who passed suddenly, while still a young husband to Schoettler’s grandmother, Ellie, and the father of a toddler daughter, Louie.  The passions for storytelling and genealogy seem to go hand-in-hand.  Schoettler’s desire to discover and create connections between herself, the past, and her audiences is evident in every word of her tale and the simplicity of her presentation.  She guides us through the journey with vivid detail and clarity.  With her we wade through the barriers of inaccurate record keeping and Ellie’s unspeakable grief, to find a Gus that is memorialized in Clemson University football records as the strongest man to have worn the jersey up until that time.

You won’t be missing the lack of spiffy production value in one of these shows, because she neither needs nor attempts to employ them.  A chair, a table with a picture of Gus and Ellie, and three pairs of glasses that allow for subtle shifts between characters, are all that accompany Schoettler to the stage.  No light or sound cues, just a voice and a vibrant orange blouse that links Schoettler to her grandfather’s Clemson colors.

It is a mysterious gift, the ability to make an audience laugh and cry for a family that is not your own and to celebrate the life of a man to whom we have no personal connection.  Yet Schoettler’s story works because so many of have someone we wish we had know better.  We can’t help but be happy for her, and that life has given her the time required to find Gus, and that she has taken the time to share the tale.

See it if:  celebrating life and our connections with others sounds like a good reason to see some live theater.

Skip it if:  the past holds no secrets worth knowing or you can’t get with the notion that less is more.

Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, 641 D St. NW

Remaining Fringe Performances:
None…but playing at Woolly Mammoth until Sunday, August 14

Running Time: 90 minutes

They say: “Can Christian Mohammed Schwartzelberg stay true to himself and still get the girl? Or will he lose her to the guy in leather pants? Set in Brooklyn’s indie music scene, it’s a rock musical comedy with heart. And ironic t-shirts.”

Logan’s Take: There’s something rotten in the borough of Brooklyn—the recent, if un-anointed Ground Zero of indie rock in the very city that birthed it—and you’d be right to be suspicious of its present state. The New York Times might have run a moratorium on the word “hipster,” but that hasn’t quelled the Third Great Migration of white, liberal arts grads ‘cross the East River to gentrifying neighborhoods like Bushwick, Broadway Junction, and Bed-Stuy. As with their Jamaican counterparts, music and authenticity is de rigueur for these Trustafarians. To wit, the sun never sets on indiedom without some blog x touting this band y as the next real thing. At first glance, the ambitions of the stage musical—even a DIY one such as this—might seem anathema to college rock’s slacker ennui. But David Eric Davis’ love letter to the culture that loves to hate itself is so well-conceived, so perfectly executed by the cast, pit, and crew, that even the most ironically minded hipsters couldn’t help but proffer a genuine reblog.

The District’s Lee August Praley stars as the ecumenical Christian Mohammed Schwartzelberg. Having studied queer theory at Bard, he’s preternaturally beta and pines perpetually for the stunning Crystal Mosser’s Juliana—“the only non-lesbian to earn a queer studies sheepskin from Sarah Lawrence.” John Fritz, he of real-life Georgetown rockers Mass Ave., plays it close as Christian’s best frenemy Jake. (Seriously, if you’re sitting in the front row, be prepared for your own Sticky Fingers zoom-in courtesy of Jake’s water-tight jeans.) I hasten to give away too much of a good thing, as half the fun here is following the bed-hopping from dive bar to open mic to, in a Nick and Norah’s final destination kind of way, McCarren Pool. Never one to ruin jokes, I will say that maybe funnier is the on-stage skewering of sacred cows like Iggy Pop, Robert Smith, and in a Manufacturing Consent sort of mood, Noam Chomsky. As a not-too-subtle parody of Yeah Yeah Yeah frontwoman Karen O, Arielle (the vivacious Crystal Arnette) probably gets the best songs, as any tune about premature ejaculation that finds you still humming on your way out of the theater has got to be a good one. If I had but one complaint, it would be the lack of stage time for Dani Stoller’s Ivy. The actor with the best pipes in the corps, Ms. Stoller hails from Brooklyn herself.

Ultimately, this show succeeds where bona fide indie-cum-Off-Off-Broadway rockers like Sufjan Stevens and Black Francis haven’t—in realizing that, at the end of the PBR tallboy, P4K and West 44th aren’t really that different after all. Be it Malkmus or Mame, both require a certain suspension of disbelief that their respective fans could ever be so woefully one-sided. That disbelief becomes dispensation here as we delight in the deconstruction of two of the most insular idioms the gangs of New York ever divined. See this show before it literally, and perhaps figuratively, sells the f#@k out. Or, worse yet, before F#@king Up Everything packs up the van and its pretenses, and this last exit to Brooklyn manifests west to a co-op farm outside of Portland, Ore.

See it if: You can laugh with all your organic, gluten-free belly at the punchlines you and your ilk have let yourselves become.

Skip it if: In your heart, you still don’t think you’re a f#@king hipster.

Remaining Performances:

Saturday, July 23rd at 6 p.m.

They say:  “Sadie is turning 90. ‘Life is wonderful? Really? So where did everybody go? Living your life, it’s like open heart surgery: a big annoying pain!’”

Sophia’s Take: Sadie sits alone in her New York City apartment on the eve of her 90th birthday.  What is the meaning of life at that age?  How does one find purpose when most of your life is lived and behind you?  These are not small questions and Open Hearts, written and performed by Miriam Kulick, offers no easy answers.  
Sadie’s journey is at the core of the story, yet each of Kulick’s six characters is searching for a type of fulfillment that is difficult to find; a purpose in life, the support of loved ones, and freedom.  As the tagline–”Living your life, it’s like open heart surgery: a big annoying pain!”–suggests, there is plenty of pain and annoyance to go around.  The welcome surprise is that Kulick’s play is more charming and hopeful than the quote, taken in isolation, suggests.  She has infused humor and tenderness into each moment of her performance.

For the most part, Kulick moves with ease and clarity between the six roles.  I am not entirely sure of the age of the character Greta, or her relationship to Sadie.  Also, Kulick’s transformation into the fix-it guy, Fernando, had me momentarily thinking he was a cleaning lady.  However, Sadie’s daughter Deborah, Deborah’s lover Henrietta, and the refugee, Anwar, have entirely unique voices and bodies. 

Director Jeanette Buck keeps the production simple and the staging grounded by what is motivating the characters.  Kulick is wonderfully adroit at keeping up the pace, while adjusting her energy level to suit the emotional state of each person.  Henrietta is as lively as Anwar is defiant, and Sadie can kvetch at the rate of a New York minute.

Billed as an hour, the show actually clocks in at more like 45 minutes, and could stand to be longer.  Sadie has lived to the age of ninety, so mourning the loss of loved ones is inevitably a part of her story.  Kulick offers a more thorough portrayal of a woman who misses her beloved sister and husband than of a mother whose child has committed suicide.  I suspect Greta is Sadie’s granddaughter, because she is certainly haunted by the specter of a woman who could not find reason enough to survive.  I would happily have given the time required to watch Kulick delve into how the loss of a child might compromise Sadie’s will to endure.

Though Sadie could be tempted further to close her heart to all that life can offer, her process of renewing her sense of purpose is delightful to watch.  As Kulick would have it, the question of how we can continue to be of service to the people we love is always worth the asking.

 See it if:  You care to take in a short, sweet, thoughtful play–or are simply missing the cadence of New York City.

Skip it if:  You want nothing to do with contemplating your own, or anyone else’s, mortality.

The Apothecary, 1013 7th St, NW

Remaining Performances:

Wednesday, July 20th at 6 p.m.
Saturday, July 16th at 11 p.m.
Sunday July 17th at 2 p.m.
Saturday July 23rd at 6:30 p.m.

They say: "OMG!… I see you have grown from the simple seed of thought, imagination and progression into the unbelievable cloud looming over us! Find me in the light through this crazy web of chaos. I'll be waiting. LOL. XOXO10101".

Emery’s Take: You get used to conformity, even in such a diverse and eclectic scene as the Capital Fringe Festival. But nothing will quite prepare you for The One Body Works’s performance of I See You. No program, no cheerful and anxious host telling us to please turn off our cell phones, just a duo with red lighted noses struggling to the stage with electrical cords, playing a See N’ Say, and interacting with the audience with a Blackberry. In those first 10 minutes where no words are spoken save for a few high-pitched shrieks, the only things that come across are that this cast and crew are going to leave everything out on stage and it will be your job to figure out what that is.

At the end of the show, one of the anonymous cast members reluctantly gave some background information on the origin of One Body Works and their production. The cast are coming back from a six-week work stay at an organic farm in the Blue Ridge Mountains; they grow their own food, have limited access to modern technology and camp without running water or electricity. Some aspects of the performance are clear indications of their experience on the farm: The aggressive contemporary dance numbers that mimic the hard labor of the field; the hand puppet show that mocks our affinity for trashy TV and our overall growing dependency on technology, especially when, in one of the most poignant moments of the show, each cast member avoids physical contact because their cell phones have turned them into walking zombies. There're also impromptu games of leapfrog and duck duck goose, a flashlight show with light saber sound effects, and a humorous make-believe game, so bring your imagination.

The tight-knit cast is a sight for sore eyes. You may never understand what’s going on on stage but you will appreciate the intensity in which it is portrayed. No elaborate effects, no lasers, no catchy songs, just a sense that nothing on stage is or has been choreographed, providing for an unpredictability that is always engaging and sometimes alarming. After having trouble communicating with each other through a flawed internet connection, the same two cast members engage in a vicious fight scene where one man ends up dead. In that moment I inadvertently made eye contact with our murderer. I quickly looked away and reached for my cell phone.

See it if: If you’ve ever lost your cell phone and thought your world was falling apart.

Skip it if: You have a serious fear of sweat.

The Bedroom, Fort Fringe, 610 L St. NW

Remaining Performances:

Thursday, July 21, 6:45 p.m.
Sunday, July 24, 2 p.m.

They say: “Returning to the stage, Andrew White — whose past credits include performances with Source, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company and Le Neon Theatre — brings you a rare, stripped-down version of Tennyson’s epic poem on love, loss, loneliness and generosity of spirit. A moving solo tour-de-force!”

Matt’s Take: The program for Enoch Arden—Andrew White’s one-man interpretation of the epic poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson—describes the titular character as “a different kind of hero, remembered more for what he failed to do; a man who, on paper at least, achieved nothing at all.” But his sad and utterly human shortcomings are precisely what make Arden such a compelling figure, distinguishing him from the Light Brigades and Burdened White Men that otherwise populate the Victorian mythos.

A proud and diligent man, Arden nonetheless lacks the respect of his provincial English neighbors due to what they perceive as his superior bearing. Coupled with an aloofness that alienates his children, and Arden doesn’t go terribly missed when, after desperate circumstances force him into a seafaring job, he is shipwrecked and marooned for 10 years on a deserted island. His wife, Annie Lee, alone mourns his disappearance, but she finds solace in the sensitive Philip Ray, a childhood friend and Arden’s onetime rival for Annie’s heart. Together they gradually move on and start anew.

Arden, meanwhile, is incapable of anything except looking backward to the past. Years of torturous solitude and unhealthy idle thoughts take their toll. When rescue finally comes and he can return to his hometown, he does so as a battered, defeated man, remembered to no one save a gossipy innkeeper who becomes his confidant. (“My God has bowed me down to what I am,” he tells her in his twilight hours.) Not quite the triumphant homecoming of Odysseus.

White, barefoot and plainly dressed, brings a steady energy to Tennyson’s verse with little help from anything more than a basic audio track and artful lighting schemes by Elliot Lanes. From memory White narrates the poem in full, adding no lines of his own, but this is hardly a straight recitation. He explores every inch of the sparse set, stepping in and out of the tale’s characters, miming their actions and mimicking their speech patterns without resorting to Olde English caricature. Arden’s despair feels real; the longings of Annie and Philip are tantalizingly palpable.

There’s a lot of purple Victorian text to get across, and decent chunks of plot exposition tend to wash over the listener. But White deserves commendation for nailing emotional peaks that elevate the work beyond the trappings of any era. An exceptionally quiet performance, sounds from outside the theater do occasionally seep in — some adding to the play’s overall effect (idle voices, crying children) and some distracting from it (car alarms). But White proves that a passionate dedication to source material, not to mention a sharp memory, can bring a performance to life no matter how barebones the venue.

See it if: You pine for the days of 12th-grade English when you realized how the classics can make for great entertainment.

Skip it if: You couldn’t stand listening to the inverted syntax of poetry written before 1900.

Remaining Performances:

Thursday, July 21, 10 p.m.
Sunday, July 24, 5 p.m.

They say: ”What makes a man a monster? Tentacles? Tentacles help. This bittersweet comedy explores and celebrates what makes us unique and what pulls us together in hard times, and reminds us that horrible squid monsters are people, too.”

Lindsey’s Take: This is a little play about monsters. It comments on our humanity. It has funny and snappy lines. But it was written and directed by college students, who also star. And now you know that.

Had I expected such young actors—and an equally young crowd—I would have been impressed by the show. The writing is quick in that scattered, conspicuously quirky way. The plot…well it kind of went like this: Covert tentacle monster meets girl. Girl is closest thing monster has to a friend. Monster is outed as monster. G-man apprehends monster. G-man conducts science on monster, whose tentacle problem becomes worse. Girl somehow gets past security, is the only person who understands monster. Girl hugs monster. Monster is killed for being monster, and somehow seems OK with that. fin.

So, yeah, the show has some heart. The monster is more tragically human than his captors, and the audience sees that. We understand him. But it’s not easy cramming character development, an exciting plot and a dénouement into a Fringe-length show. This one doesn’t quite do it.

The cast performed admirably, though, on the night I attended. There are awkward supermarket interactions, wherein the monster (Teddy Kavros) is comically frustrated by his predicament and the girl (Emily Wolfteich) is appealingly earnest. There are hilarious moments from writer/director/actor Soren Paul Budge, playing the zealot G-man, as he condemns the monster for what he is. The sight of the poor monster trying to mash his tentacles on the keys of an old typewriter to prove he is human is practically the stuff of David Cronenberg or David Lynch.

And we now know that the college student’s idea of humanity is getting up, going to work, eating dinner alone and crying yourself to sleep. Sounds about right, I guess.

As this show revels in its own oddity, it does succeed in capturing an image of humanity, rushed though it may be. The monster is resigned to his fate, the G-men and scientists are bent on condemning him, and the audience just sits and watches it all happen.

See it if: You like Michael Cera and quirky dialogue, or still have a
Manic Mansion-esque attachment to tentacles.

Skip it if: Monsters are always monsters, and college plays belong in college.

Fringe founder Julianne Brienza plays THE MATCH GAME, Friday, July 16. Image (c) Andrew Bossi, Flickr.

Remaining Performances:

Sunday, July, 17th, at 3 p.m.
Saturday, July 23rd, at 9 p.m.
Sunday, July 24th, at 6:30 p.m.

They say: “Get ready to fill in the blanks and laugh yourself silly at a live stage version of the classic TV game show, Match Game. Contestants match answers with a panel of six local celebrities to win cash and prizes! Proceeds support three area non-profit organizations.”

Lindsey’s Take: This show is not for everyone. Be prepared for clowns yelling “vagina”, discussions on naked cooking, farm animals, and celebrities flashing one another. And lots of booze.

The celebrities are fabulous and are participating to raise money for three local charities. The host and announcer, each in double-breasted suits, wrangle the celebrities and auction items for charity during the “commercial breaks” – because you didn’t bring a remote. The contestants are pulled from the audience (get there early to put your name in the running) as foils for the ridiculous antics on stage. The situations are adult, the references are sexual and the profanity is constant. Without gratuitous innuendo, plenty of booze and terrible puns, this retro remake could have been a little more civilized, but certainly not more fun.

The celebrities were the stars of the show… not because they are larger-than-life famous, but because they were clearly having such a party on stage. The local lineup changes for each show, but performers, drag queens, artists, chefs and media personalities make repeat appearances. At the Friday night show I saw, Capital Fringe Festival Director Julianne Brienza kept refilling her fellow celebrity panelists’ drinks. Drag queen of note Queen Bambi spent the better part of the show playing with her boobs. Miss Pixie’s Furnishings and Whatnots proprietor Pixie Windsor was the big spender in the evening’s auctions, and she brought cookies for the audience and wigs for the other celebs. Bond 45 Executive Chef Enzo Febbraro threatened to take his pants off, and sideshow girl Mab Just Mab–a “tenured freak” at Red Palace–added “(in bed)” to every single answer she wrote. The host spent most of the show just trying to get them to answer the questions. Every lineup is different, but this one was perfect for a Friday night.

For this particular show, the celebrities were allowed (encouraged?) to bring drinks with them on stage, which became a running joke. Is there ice? Where’d the vodka go? Sorry guys, I am really intoxicated. I promise you, it was hilarious.

The energy up on stage reverberated in the audience, with raucous catcalls and dirty fill-in-the-blank answers coming from the house as much as from the contestants. Except for one jealous boyfriend who absolutely did not want his contestant boyfriend on stage to take his shirt off, the audience seemed to enjoy themselves immensely. They also enjoyed yelling “Take your shirt off” in response to every command from Jealous Boyfriend. And that was before the game even started.

If all that sounds like a hilarious evening at the theater, Match Game is the show for you.

See it if: Drunken debauchery, sexual innuendo and ’70s game shows describe your ideal Friday night.

Skip it if: You like your Fringe shows shaken, not stirred.  

See Andrew Bossi‘s incriminating photos from the performance of The Match Game DC reviewed here.

Remaining Performance:

Saturday, July 16 at 8:00 p.m.

They say: “Comedian Vijai Nathan breaks every taboo as she exposes the underbelly of an Indian American family. She takes you through growing up Indian in a Jewish community: discovering sex in a repressed Hindu household, and finding herself along the way.”

Adam’s Take: Being a stranger in a strange land is never easy.  More difficult, still, is being a stranger in the country of your birth.  A pure natural on the stage, imagining a setting in which Vijai Nathan feels less than completely at ease, much less foreign, seems inconceivable.  A self-described “seductress of storytelling,” Nathan keeps the audience waiting to hear her next line (and speculating whether it can be funnier than the last).  Yet growing up with brown skin in an all-white community, the daughter of recent Indian immigrants, she struggled from an early age with questions of identity and self, trying to relate to her classmates who she recognized as being different.

Elementary school plays were only the first of several awakenings.  As the only person of color in her class, certain roles seemed to fit naturally into her young acting repertoire.  And a life as a performer was what she aspired to do.  Her parents, meanwhile, had another professional path in mind that was to lead her straight into a med school cap and gown before she was even out of her teens.  They hoped for a wedding dress to follow a few years later.

Of course, the arranged marriage in store for Nathan would not have been particularly compatible with the matchmaking parables of the 80s films she was watching then, starring Molly Ringwald and others.  By the time she’s off to college, Nathan fully relishes her American-born freedom, at odds with her Hindu upbringing. One day, in the rain, she falls in love with a Jewish Long Islander.  A chic Hin-Jew wedding seems just around the corner.  However, the relationship makes Nathan reconsider whether she can just let go of the Indian part of her, despite her best of efforts earlier in life.

Nathan has no fear of intimacy with her audience. She will readily reveal secrets about herself that most people would keep locked away.  Those moments of vulnerability, almost a sign of some deeper trust with those who gather to hear her, are critical for an effective raconteur such as herself.  Nathan can also paint vivid scenes through her words and actions, from samosas being devoured by rats to her grandmother speaking Tamil on her visit to Madras.  The details about Nathan’s life are all there.  Hearing more self-reflection about them would have made the narrative even more riveting.  Nathan only briefly mentions her two older sisters, but it sounds like she is their complete opposite.  What does she think made her different?  What would have happened if she had grown up in a predominately Indian community, either in the United States or elsewhere?  Nathan has good stories to share and should elaborate more on the impact she thinks they had in making her who she is.

In the sixth grade, Nathan was randomly drawn to be the soothsayer in her school’s performance of Julius Caesar.  She took the role to heart informing Caesar (and the audience), with much theatrics, of his impending demise.  It was a part that fit her well even outside the school playhouse.  Nathan knew at an early age that the stage would be her home.  She realized she was destined to be a performer.  An audience at any one of her shows has much to appreciate for that prophecy coming true.

See it if: You think stories that span two continents are a much better way of traveling the globe than having to book an international flight.

Skip it if: Personal details about family issues growing up are, in your opinion, only to be shared with one’s therapist.

Goethe Institut – 812 7th St NW

Remaining Performances:

Friday, July 15th, 10 p.m.
Tuesday, July 19th, 6 p.m.
Saturday, July 23rd, 3:30 p.m.

They say: “In search of adventure in Poland 1989, a young man discovers a female assassin, a Jewish skinhead, a mysterious bird, and the end of innocence. John Feffer plays seven characters in this one-man show, with an assist from the bird.”

Lindsey’s Take: The Bird is a story from John Feffer’s life, interspersed with the imagined views of friends and acquaintances and the historic events leading up to that point. He plays each character one at a time in monologue, switching between his own recollections of that summer in Poland and alternate view that tells another side of his story. The bird in question isn’t central to the story as much as it is a frame for the events of a summer, a girl, a political movement and a search for the past.

The performance is surprisingly funny at times, despite a serious subject. Feffer’s observations about his life, about people in general, and about himself are delivered with accuracy, honesty, and a tinge of humor. He imitates himself in a Polish accent. He mixes wisdom and wit. He tells a captivating personal story.

While he starts with the tale of the bird, Feffer’s story really begins as a college graduate looking for adventure and willing to take any job overseas—even Poland in 1989, as the Solidarity movement helped begin the transition from Eastern bloc to democracy. As he styles himself as a foreign correspondent, he immerses himself in the stories of Polish Jews, finding his ancestor’s hometown and some history along the way.

See it if: You’re interested in a personal story with observations on life, shared history and a little humor.

Skip it if: You’re here for the fringiest of Fringe, not for serious storytelling.

Warehouse,

Remaining Performances:

Thursday, July 14, 7:45 p.m.

Saturday, July 16, noon

Tuesday, July 19, 7:45 p.m.

Friday, July 22, 6 p.m.

They say: “Sara – fortune teller & member of the ‘We Bomb Truth Over Lies’ graffiti movement – is haunted. The City eats its residents, exiling their spirits to Sara’s apartment, while Go-Go & its Mayor BirdMan funk eternal.”

Matt’s Take: “You box me up inside your prayers,” says Araba Brown’s Sara Josephine James, as five other characters—all different forces acting on her life—literally surround her with boards, trying to trap her in with all the complexities of being a modern black woman. We learn that she’s already been through much and faces constant judgment for past mistakes, but her travails aren’t anywhere near an end. In fact, they’re about to get a whole lot weirder.

Nina Angela Mercer’s Gypsy & the Bully Door follows its lithe protagonist as she dances, fucks, sings, and suffers through two cities and compounded miseries in search of the way to transcendence. With her believable passion and even more astounding talent as a dancer, Brown steals every scene she’s in (the possible exception comes in a back-and-forth between Sara and her has-been of an idol, Mama Chola, played by a delightfully zany Nicole Brewer).

The audience is first greeted with an electric piano laying down a soft groove. Soon the rest of an exceptionally tight live quintet joins in, and we see a slideshow depicting a Metro station, uptown joint Madam’s Organ, and other scenes from District life. Sara, it turns out, is a D.C. native. But the city hasn’t been kind to her, nor to her roommate Khadijah (Dot McDonald) nor their respective boyfriends Roy (Kahlil Daniel) and Nate (Akil Williams).

In fact, Nate has just returned from Afghanistan, and though he made it through the horrors of war, he can’t escape the police department’s deadly racism, and early on winds up shot down on the street. But he doesn’t disappear, at least not from Sara’s life. It just so happens that Sara can communicate with spirits of the deceased, and sure enough Nate appears, gunshot wounds bleeding through his T-shirt and all, and informs her of her mission: to bomb (read: tag with graffiti) chain restaurants on U Street NW.

Naturally the plan goes awry, spurring Sara to do what she’s always wanted: flee to New York and try to make it as a dancer, her dreams validated by—what else?—a spectral visit from Mama Chola.Roytags along. They change their names (with Sara now calling herself “Destiny Rose”) and start anew; but Roy has dreams of his own, and accepts a white man’s offer to travel the world as part of a touring art exhibition. Meanwhile, Sara’s visit to Chola ends in disappointment, and she settles into a life of fortune telling and hairdressing. Among her clients are a sympathetic white social worker and his frustrated Latina girlfriend.

Everything from Sara’s initial visions to her eventual breakdown and resurrection attempts to capture the summation of the black experience in America. It’s an admirable challenge, but the play suffers from trying to do too much. While only occasionally stopping to focus, Mercer takes on gentrification, police brutality, media sensationalism, sexual double standards, mistreatment of veterans, white guilt, Uncle Toms, commercial art, the power of spirituality, broken promises, shattered dreams, and national politics.

The task’s sheer magnitude works against it. Take one of the play’s most bizarre sequences, in which the actor playing Roy emerges as “Brotha President” (read: Barack Obama), a stiff puppet who dances the soft-shoe to amuse a Southern slave trader. It’s an interesting and certainly controversial idea, but one that demands more polish to have its desired effect. Still, Mercer has an uncanny ear for dialogue and knows how to flesh out great characters. Coupled with Eric Ruffin’s direction—the scenes in which Sara achieves near-bliss through sexual ecstasy are plain gorgeous—and you have yourself a stirring play.

See it if: You like the thought of Toni Morrison, Parliament/Funkadelic, and vaudeville theater having a lovechild.

Skip it if: Thinking about race, sex, funk, or all three together makes you uncomfortable.