Theatre in Review: Sump'n Like Wings (Mint Theater Company/Theatre Row)

	Lindsey Steinert (standing) and Mariah Lee. Photo: Maria Baranova

"Yer better let me outa here! I'll kick yer ole door down!" So says Willie Baker, the heroine of Sump'n Like Wings, who, as the play begins, is being held prisoner by her mother. (Actually, it's an act of gaslighting; the door to her room is open, a fact that is revealed soon enough.) Only sixteen, Willie has been removed from school to work for Mrs. Baker, who operates a dining room attached to a hotel owned by her brother, Jim, in a bustling Oklahoma town circa 1913. Despite the raucous comedy of the first scene, packed with local characters coming and going, it's a place that, we will come to see, is populated by solitary figures.

Despite her obstreperous entrance, Willie is not a hellion. To prove the point, playwright, Lynn Riggs introduces the real thing in the person of Elvie Rapp, a one-woman crime wave. In jail for theft, she frees all the male prisoners; even the sheriff wants nothing to do with her. Even so, Willie is a problem -- bored, restless, and looking for anything to catapult her out of her hostage existence. "You got a streak in you," says Elvie, who ought to know. "You cain't keep her in a place that's got a lid on it," adds Uncle Jim, warning Mrs. Baker. "She's got sump'n inside of her like wings, and she'll beat off the cover, and she'll go away again like she done before."

By the time Uncle Jim makes this pronouncement, Willie has already run off with Boy Huntington, a feckless (and married) jack of no trades; taken up with another man; and produced a baby that, someone observes, is "dark-complected." (This comment drew a gasp at the performance I attended but, as per the production's program notes, early twentieth-century Oklahoma was a multi-racial place; anyway, it seems to be the least of Willie's problems.) Back at her mother's house, yearning after her child's father (who has plans of his own), Willie is once again pursued by Boy, who, this time, has divorce papers and a new job on offer. Utterly lacking a Plan B and tired of Mrs. Baker's judgmental gaze, she gives in, painfully aware that she doesn't love him. "Marryin' to be free!" she says, laughing a little hysterically. "Who's the joke on?"

Riggs, best known as the author of Green Grow the Lilacs, which became the basis for Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma!, wrote about his native state in several keys. Brooks Atkinson praised Lilacs as "a hale and hearty narrative of loves, jamborees, and neighborly skirmishes." But the playwright, who was gay and one-sixteenth Cherokee, also had an appreciation for life's outsiders and a coldly accurate view of a society both materialistic and strangely unfeeling. "Why'd you leave him?" Mrs. Baker asks when Willie flees her life with Boy. "He give you a home, didn't he?" You had enough to eat, didn't you?" The idea of love never comes into it.

Raelle Myrick-Hodges' production is anchored by four striking performances: Mariah Lee's Willie always has a sullen comeback but look closer: She's a bright, intelligent young woman withering from lack of opportunity and affection. In her quieter moments, she stares into the distance, seemingly envisioning a future she'd rather not think about. As for romance, she wonders, "Why is it they faller me, and try to paw me and slobber over me that a-way? And always the worst men!" Later, reduced to waitressing in a grim dive, she looks back at her trail of losses and muses, "It's the way people are made that's to blame." Lee does remarkably multifaceted work, evolving from an unruly youth to a sadder but wiser survivor. Standing ramrod-straight and looking down at the world in disdain, Julia Brothers' Mrs. Baker is the living embodiment of unforgiving Protestant rectitude. "Better read the Bible. You have to pay fer whut you do," she tells Willie in a low moment; the words are more brutal than any physical weapon. Widowed, her other children scattered, she doesn't want to hear any nonsense about happiness or satisfaction. (Myrick-Hodges arranges a brief tableau of mother and daughter, standing slightly apart, avoiding each other's gaze -- revealing how alike they are in their unbending wills.) Richard Lear is the kindly Uncle Jim, who, in the most blistering scene, tries to make Mrs. Baker see the error of her fault-finding ways. ("Go on bein' wrapped up in yer religion-and forgettin' yer own flesh and blood! And fin'lly when yer own daughter's fought her fight and lost, and got old and awful while she's still young-whut'll you do then?") As the slight, faintly immature Boy, who can't let Willie go but can't hold onto her either, Lukey Klein is the sort of sad lightweight doomed to wander through life chasing dreams that evaporate at the touch.

Standouts in the large supporting cast include Lindsey Steinert, whose Elvie sets a notably bad example for Willie; Joy Avigail Sudduth as Uncle Jim's all-seeing, supremely skeptical housekeeper Hattie; and Leon Pintel as Hattie's daughter, who drops by a house party to deliver some lovely vocal selections.

The action, stretching across three years and several locations, is solidly served by Junghyun Georgia Lee's unit set, which places differing furniture arrangements against a wall of rough-hewn wood planks. Lighting designer Isabella Gill-Gomez wraps everything in a warmly incandescent glow typical of the period. Emilee McVey-Lee's costumes have a nice feel for the non-nonsense styles favored by the characters; note the almost clerical black ensemble worn by Willie after tragedy befalls her. Sean Hagerty's sound design includes some plangent guitar-and-fiddle underscoring plus such effects as train whistles.

Riggs is peddling no happy endings here, leaving Willie in a solitary place, barricading her doors against male interlopers. But the playwright does suggest that her salvation, such as it is, lies in her self-reliance. Sump'n Like Wings is slow to start and is arguably weighed down by too many small roles that go nowhere. But it is notable for its diamond-hard central character and the playwright's portrait of a post-frontier community that, under a cheerful demeanor, is essentially rootless and calculating. And the second half is marked by scalding moments of truth-telling. With this penetrating snapshot of the vintage American heartland, Riggs can be seen as a forerunner of William Inge and Horton Foote; behind all that backslapping is a lot of loneliness. --David Barbour