Theatre in Review: Redwood (Ensemble Studio Theatre) Say hello to Brittany K. Allen, a double threat you'll want to know better. She stars in Redwood which she also wrote, but this is no mere vehicle; she surrounds herself with a gallery of sharp-eyed, sharp-tongued characters who prove so engaging that when the plot takes a frankly preposterous turn, we're more than willing to go along with it for the fun of seeing what happens next. Allen, who is Black, plays Meg, a dedicated schoolteacher and advocate for education funding living happily with Drew, her white boyfriend. She is, however, reluctant to spill the news about her domestic arrangements to her mother, Beverly -- a woman who could intimidate anyone, given her flippant attitude about her family's history of slavery, even bursting into "Old Man River" for the sheer transgressive fun of it. Then there's Stevie, Beverly's brother, who is tired of being the family's gay outlier and has little time for his sister's churchy and social pretensions: "Jack and Jil is the devil," he hisses, casting shade on one of her revered social institutions. Drew has his parental issues, too: His father walks away from difficult discussions and his Asian stepmother Harriet, offering relationship advice, says, "I would not say that our different racial backgrounds have ever been a huge problem for us, because of all we have in common: gardening, juice, bourbon, game shows." Everyone has an opinion in Redwood and, almost always, it's not what you expect. The plot is set in motion by Stevie who, having cashed out of a Silicon Valley career and terminated a relationship, is back home in Baltimore, casting about for something to do. His dedication to fitness -- an obsession that extends to attending his gym's prenatal yoga sessions, at which he is registered as an "ally" -- doesn't fill his days. Instead, he gets on a genealogy kick, firing off a series of email missives to his extended clan, urging them to swab their cheeks and send the acquired DNA to Ancestry.com. Getting few, if any, takers, he forges ahead, discovering a great-great-grandmother, Alameda, who bore several children by a plantation owner named Tatum. What makes the news especially awkward is that Drew's last name is...Tatum. To find out that your lover is also your distant cousin may be food for thought. To discover that your lover's ancestor enslaved your ancestor is likely to be destabilizing. Drew, who has never known much about his forbears, spirals down into a funk while Meg experiences unaccustomed feelings of rage. Confusion abounds: Is this news relevant to their current circumstances? Might it poison their relationship? What, exactly, does one do with it? Meanwhile, Stevie's research reveals that, far from being "star-crossed" (in the words of Meg's mother), the relationship between Alameda and her master was defined by rape and other forms of violence. Redwood is a tricky proposition, starting out as a slick domestic comedy and then turning uglier and more complicated by degrees. Allen isn't afraid to mix scenes of bright repartee with the appalling details of slavery, fearlessly exploring the toxic mix of desire and possession that bound Alameda and Tatum. (When Alameda tried to run away, Tatum had her tendons slashed; then again, upon his death, he left her a considerable legacy.) It's not an easy mix and, in a less well-written play, it might seem like a fundamental flaw. But I think the playwright's strategy is to alternately charm and discomfit us, never forgetting that her characters' comfortable existence is built on a foundation of profound injustice, a contradiction that may be impossible to fully resolve. The play's bifurcated moods are honored in Mikhaela Mahony's production, which, aided by a nimble cast, remains funny and disturbing in equal measure. (Mahony is especially deft in staging a farcical fast-forward trip through Meg and Drew's courtship, its entire arc summed up in three minutes or less.) Allen's appealing Meg, her essentially sunny nature scrambled by Stevie's discoveries -- she finds herself dismissing couple's counseling as "white people's nonsense" -- is well-matched with Drew Lewis' gentle, well-intentioned Drew, who, blindsided, turns sulky and defensive. Their connection feels authentic, as does the threat of it slipping away. As Meg's mother, the always-welcome Portia is a master underminer - smirkily dismissing Tatum the slaver as "Tater Tot" -- but her wisecracking masks the fear that her marriage is unraveling. Tyrone Mitchell Henderson's Stevie is an affectionate nag who can turn ice-cold in the face of foolishness; he is also surprisingly thoughtful when admitting to the "cellular pain" caused by learning the truth about Alameda. Kate Siahaan-Rigg makes Harriet the play's eccentric voice of reason, even when admitting that Drew's father did nothing when a friend referred to her as "Hank's little China doll." Designing a multi-location play in EST's tiny space can be a challenge, but Ao Li inventively uses a series of movable, low-rise drawers to constantly reconfigure the stage. Similarly, the theatre's lack of height makes it tough to deliver anything but the most basic lighting, but co-designers Betsy Chester and Stacey Derosier collaborate with Li on a goose-bump moment when the portraits of generations past magically appear on the walls. Mika Eubanks' costumes are both appropriate to each character -- Stevie's ensembles are especially amusing - and, in the case of Alameda and the other 19th-century characters, solid period sketches. Kathy Ruvuna's sound design makes good use of pop hits from Azealia Banks, Etta James, Nat King Cole, and Natasha Bedingfield, among others. Redwood is far from being a perfect play; its brief-ish running time is, arguably, too crowded with developments and most of the characters could use more detail and shading. But Allen zeroes in with rare accuracy on a primary issue of the day. In the finale, she brings many of the characters together for a tentative birthday party visited by spirits of the past; it's a moment that is funny, festive, and filled with pain. Then again, that's the inheritance of everyone onstage. Finding a balance between the challenges of the present and the horror of the past isn't easy; indeed, it is likely to be, for each of them, the work of a lifetime. --David Barbour 
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