Theatre in Review: Sunset Baby (Signature Theatre)

	Russell Hornsby. Photo: Marc J. Franklin

This is the season of the comeback play, in which also-rans from previous seasons return, displaying renewed strength and relevance. The current Broadway production of Appropriate is light years ahead of its 2014 premiere, for example. Now comes Dominique Morisseau's Sunset Baby, getting a sizzling revival at Signature. First seen at LAByrinth Theatre in 2013, it offered an intriguing premise and some gripping sequences, but the overall production was too shouty, too determined to go from zero to sixty in ten seconds or less. Both engaging and a bit headache-inducing, it came across as a minor work, not on the level of the playwright's Detroit trilogy -- Detroit '67, Paradise Blue, and Skeleton Crew -- which constitutes some of the best American playwrighting of the last quarter-decade.

I can't say if Morisseau has reworked the script or if another cast and director make the difference -- perhaps it's both -- but, to my eyes, Sunset Baby is now a trenchant, gutsy probing of lives trapped in the wreckage of a failed revolution. Structurally, it's a game of three-corner catch, with a trio of characters maneuvering to possess a set of letters from a dead woman. They come with a high financial and psychological price: Written by Ashanti X, once associated with the Black Panthers -- the group is never named but her affiliation is clear -- and, later, a crack addict, the addressee is her former lover, Kenyatta, in prison for armed robbery. Ashanti never sent the letters, instead leaving them to Nina, her daughter by Kenyatta, "so that you will understand what we do for love."

Now released, Kenyatta is desperate to get his hands on the letters, which, he feels, are rightly his. But any family reunion is doomed: Before his arrest, Kenyatta walked out, leaving the spiraling Ashanti and five-year-old Nina to fend for themselves. The grown-up Nina, having come of age in squalor while trying to manage her drug-ravaged mother, is now a dope dealer and robber working in partnership with her hustling boyfriend Damon. She has zero interest in accommodating Kenyatta who, as far as she is concerned, is disqualified from any parental claims.

The letters mean something different to each character, but for all they carry explosive potential. Kenyatta, who shoulders years of guilt for his actions, is looking for absolution or, at the very least, a release from the past. Nina sees them as an effective tool for punishing her father, giving him a taste of his withholding ways. But numerous academics and publishers, seeing Ashanti and Kenyatta as another Angela Davis and George Jackson, are offering cash for the publication rights. The money could buy a new life for Nina and Damon, but it's just beginning to dawn on the latter that Nina, an expert when it comes to keeping her own counsel, may not be including him in her plans.

Sunset Baby unfolds in a series of tense confrontations that, under Steve H. Broadnax III's taut direction, never tip over into melodrama. Kenyatta, who takes the long view of political struggle, admits that "this freedom that I demanded," sadly "would not happen in my lifetime." He saw Nina's generation as "the untainted, unwilted next phase. You are the change." Now he winces silently when Nina dresses like a prostitute for her honey-trap operation and Damon refers to her as the "sweetest bitch you wanna know." Damon, surprisingly well-versed in the ideas of the sociologist Steven Spitzer, tries bonding with Kenyatta, insisting his drug racket is a way of "working of the books, creating commerce that doesn't contribute to the lower of national debt, doesn't help to aid and abet war funds." It is, he concludes, "another form of activism." More brutally, Nina dismisses her father, saying, "Your ass is coming back here to be sentimental. Ain't nothin' sentimental about a dead revolution."

At the same time, Damon, knowing that his current career won't end well, goes behind Nina's back, looking to cut a deal with Kenyatta. (Damon isn't afraid to rifle the apartment, looking for the letters, which Nina has effectively squirreled away, further eroding her trust.) Fearing his hold on her is slipping, he uses a combination of seduction and bullying to coerce her into playing ball, setting the stage for a tense father-daughter confrontation that forces Nina to reckon with how a movement that ended in betrayals, gunfire, and incarceration has led her and Kenyatta to this desolate place.

It's an intricately orchestrated family intrigue played out against a background of political turmoil and racial apartheid, and all three cast members excel. Russell Hornsby's Kenyatta is painfully aware of the damage he has caused, struggling visibly with the refutation of his ideas that Nina represents. Moses Ingram's Nina is wrapped in a cloak of self-protection, calculating her next move even when locked in an embrace with Damon. J. Alphonse Nicholson's Damon is a criminal caught in a trap of his own making, struggling to raise enough money to purchase a new life and take care of the son he never sees. It's interesting how many of the characters' actions mirror each other: Kenyatta committed robbery for the cause; Nina does it for survival. Kenyatta was an absent father and so is Damon, a point not lost on Nina. Just as Ashanti wrote letters and never sent them, Kenyatta has made videos for Nina, telling his side of the story, which become a bargaining chip between them.

Wilson Chin's slum apartment set is dominated by an enormous crumbling upstage wall, the space filled out with appropriate furnishings and personal touches. (Keep an eye on that cubist painting on the walls.) Alan C. Edwards' lighting includes some atmospheric lamplit looks and end-of-scene color washes that heighten the production's theatricality. Katherine Freer's projection design blends vintage footage of Black activists with excerpts from Kenyatta's video messages. Emilio Sosa's costumes are at their most noticeable when drawing a contrast between Nina's hooker wardrobe and her everyday wear. (He is aided by the wig and hair designs by J. Jared Janas.) The sound design, by Curtis Craig and Jimmy Keys aka "J. Keys", employs a playlist of his by Nina Simone, Nina's namesake, a figure who combined an entertainment career with political activity at no small cost to herself.

Morisseau cleverly finds a way to slice the Gordian knot that she has woven, providing her characters with a release that is as painful as it is necessary. You won't find a drop of sentiment here; there are no abrupt changes of heart, just the recognition that choices have consequences, and idealistic dreams can have toxic effects. This production puts Sunset Baby where it belongs, next to her best works. --David Barbour