Theatre in Review: The Fabulous Miss Marie (New Federal Theatre/Castillo Theatre)"There is no despair in Miss Marie's house," says the title character in The Fabulous Miss Marie. Maybe not, but there's certainly enough lust, deception, scandal, and all-around moral decay to eat at the souls of all who hang out there. Activities include drinking (on an epic scale), adultery, and watching stag films. But remember, Miss Marie is the star of the show: "Hey, get out of that spotlight, broad," she tells one of the guests. "This is my story, understand?" One of Marie's politically-minded guests, hearing her hold forth on the sexual charms of young men, shouts, "You're decadent. You're indecent. You're counterrevolutionary." But his words fall on stony ground as the liquor and good times continue to flow. Miss Marie is a fortysomething matron living in Los Angeles with her husband, Bill, who works as a parking attendant. She proudly notes that she is "president of four Negro women's clubs," although it's hard to imagine what any average clubwoman would make of the activities in Marie's living room, to say nothing of her bedroom. Life at the house is a nonstop party, although not one for the fainthearted. As the lights come up, everyone is watching a film of a white couple having sex; it inspires jeers and expressions of disgust. Then again, Marie and her guests (all of them black) hardly need the inspiration. Marie is cheating on Bill with Art Garrison, the young and well-muscled ex-con whom she has taken in as a kind of houseboy. (At one point, he tries to initiate sex with her on the couch while Bill is passed out on the floor; this proves to be too much even for Marie.) Her excuse for her behavior is tit for tat, as Bill is sleeping with a white woman. Marie's niece, Wanda, is in love with the selfish Marco Polo Henderson, who won't let her move in because she has no income; she turns to Art, who offers her a steady gig as a receptionist in a massage parlor. She passes on that, but ends up sleeping with Bill. "I thought I was coming to a little old lady's house," says Wanda, realizing how far off she was. Written in 1968, The Fabulous Miss Marie is largely populated by characters for whom politics means little or nothing. "I ain't never known anything about no discrimination. I always did have my freedom," says Marie, blithely ignoring hundreds of years of slavery, Jim Crow, and economic inequality. One of her guests, Bud, a schoolteacher, smugly notes, "The district where I teach is not in the ghetto, if you know what I mean. Where I teach, the kids know how to act." When Bill's white boss makes trouble for him, Marie snaps, "That's just like a Jew." Gafney, Marie's in-house Marxist, who sports a dashiki and generally comports himself like an idiot, subjects the crowd to his revolutionary criticism, but all he gets for his pains is a knuckle sandwich from Art. Wounded, he replies, "Don't you know I'm non-violent, you stupid, ignorant n----r?" Every time someone turns on the television, there is news footage of civil rights demonstrations turning violent. But why worry? Dancing a time step, Marie and Bill sing, "We almost make as much as some colored doctors make!" A critical success in its day -- Bullins won an Obie for it -- The Fabulous Miss Marie, like many satires written with the intention to shock, has succumbed to the depredations of age. It basically has one point to make -- its pleasure-seeking characters live in a bubble while the outside world burns -- and it makes it early and often. The play is structured like a piece of music -- 75% of the text consists of monologues directed at the audience -- and it isn't that unusual for a character to burst into song. Seen in the light of another century, however, the flat characters are of little interest and the satirical points they represent have long ago lost their bite. The play is old-fashioned in other aspects, too, such as the way that Bullins harps on the characters' barrenness. Bud's wife, Toni, avoids sex out of fear of getting pregnant -- she's on the pill, but no matter -- so he fools around with a Texan who empties a bottle of beer in a single gulp. Similarly, we learn that Marie can't have a baby because Bill forced her to have an abortion, although one shudders to think of Marie as a mother. One can't help feeling that Bullins considers it a duty for black women to reproduce. Under the direction of Woodie King, Jr., a skilled cast makes the most of these carryings-on, led by Tonya Pinkins, who, as Marie, always has one more wildly revealing pantsuit to appear in, usually accompanied by a feather boa, cigarette holder, and glitter platform shoes. As usual, Pinkins has presence and attitude to spare, and she puts them to good use here. (My favorite moment came when, in the middle of all this partying, she turned to us and announced, "I'm a good Catholic." There must be some hot times in the confessional when she shows up.) Roscoe Orman, light years away from his day job as Gordon on Sesame Street, is a dapper scoundrel as Bill, forever exclaiming "I was drunk" when called on the carpet by Marie for taking his white mistress out in public. Ashley C. Turner is a believably on-the-make Art Garrison, G. Alverez Reid has a handle on Bud's hypocrisies, and Aaliyah Habeeb is solid as Toni, whose worries about sex end with her husband. The production design, aside from Ali Turns' costumes, is fairly basic, but Ademola Olugebefola's set design has a couple of amusing touches, most notably the elaborate couch encased in plastic. Antoinette Tynes' lighting and Bill Toles' sound design get the job done. Bullins, who is retired, was prolific in his day; his program bio states that he has written 100 plays. Clive Barnes was a major supporter, and, writing in the Times, Mel Gussow said that The Fabulous Miss Marie was "a salutary reminder of the breadth of Mr. Bullins' vision." To these eyes, the current production shows how fast times change in the theatre; seen outside of the civil rights dramas and other social convulsions of the late 1960s, Miss Marie doesn't seem very fabulous at all.--David Barbour 
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