Theatre in Review: Ink'dWell (New Light Theater Project/59E59)For nearly two hours, Ink'dWell roots around in the aftermath of a man's death without finding anything particularly interesting or dramatic to say about it. The deceased is Isaac, golden boy in a Black family that summers on Martha's Vineyard. (The title is an allusion to The Inkwell, a Black enclave on the island.) Married, with an adolescent daughter, and idolized by his parents, Isaac nonetheless turns up lifeless on the beach one morning. Early on, playwright Erin E. Adams tries for some suspense about the circumstances, but the note in the bottom of the program, citing the National Suicide Hotline, constitutes a major spoiler alert. Before we arrive at that revelation, the action shuttles between past and present, charting the fraught, yet loving, relationship between Isaac and his sister Kendra, the family's prodigal daughter. She is, in her early years at least, a perpetual screwup who can never get an encouraging word from Maya, her (and Isaac's) piece-of-work mother. "Please, it's very clear that you were the planned child," grumbles Kendra to Isaac. "Well, they didn't get rid of you," he offers, lamely. Little wonder that Kendra doesn't come around the beach house too often. The flashbacks hint that Isaac may be more troubled than advertised but Adams gets bogged down in a) maudlin scenes of mourning that do nothing to advance the action and b) a laundry list of metaphors (swimming/drowning, the slave trade, a mythical sea witch) designed to illustrate her theme. Meanwhile, she leaves her characters starved of specificity. We learn that Isaac's marriage is of the shotgun variety -- so what does he feel for good-natured wife, Ember, or Nia, his spikily intelligent daughter? Trapped? Joyful? Resigned? There are hints of fiscal problems -- the beach house, as it happens, is up for grabs -- but nothing about Isaac's career or aspirations. Similarly, Kendra is dogged by feelings of failure, but what's her story? What does she do? Does she have a personal life? The most neglected character is the family's father, whose arrival is delayed twice, after which the play forgets about him altogether. Under Tabatha Gayle's stiff direction, the cast members work hard at trying to put some flesh on the underimagined creatures they have been assigned to play. The most successful is Landon G. Woodson, who invests Isaac with considerable charisma and a suggestion of mystery. As Kendra, Britney Nicole Simpson struggles to make something out of a character whose entire adult life is, for the purposes of the play, a blank. (Many of the Isaac -- Kendra scenes unfold while swimming, forcing the actors to wave their arms laboriously during lengthy stretches of dialogue.) Cherene Snow captures all of Maya's most tyrannical qualities -- "People will walk all over you if you give them an inch," she says; little chance of that with her -- along with a hidden softer side. Starr Kirkland displays an occasional flash of fire as Ember. Tai Leshaun finds something appealing in Nia's naturally skeptical, rebellious nature. Gayle indulges in other awkward bits of staging, including flashbacks that send the actors scurrying in reverse around the stage. Anna Kiraly's set is strangely under-furnished, but her projections of ocean waves are well-done, as are Isaiah Howell's atmospheric island sound effects. Annie Wiegand's lighting, aside from a couple of incandescent sunrise effects, is on the dark side. Daricel Calcano's costumes are perfectly okay. But Ink'dWell wants the audience to care deeply about the aftereffects of Isaac's passing without telling much of anything about the characters or their relationships. It announces its seriousness without delivering on it. --David Barbour 
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