Theatre in Review: Milk Like Sugar (Playwrights Horizons/Women's Project Theatre)

	Adrienne C. Moore and Angela Lewis. Photo: Ari Mintz.

Milk Like Sugar begins with a bit of a Beyoncé tune, which features the refrain "Who Runs the World? Girls!" And, for the first ten minutes or so of Kirsten Greenidge's gripping tale, it's a proposition that seems eminently true. This is because we're watching three black teenagers in a tattoo parlor, discussing the babies they're planning on having as soon as possible. Surprisingly, their collective mood is one of happy expectation and utter certainty. Margie is already "pg," as they like to put it. "It's going to be mad cool, yo," says Talisha, the toughest of the three. (How tough is she? A minute later, she reminds herself, "I gotta find out who's going to write my papers this year.")

The young ladies' shared certainty that motherhood at 16 is a brilliant idea is positively unsettling, and becomes even more so as they fixate on such details as Coach diaper bags and Burberry sneakers. Equally notable is their lack of knowledge about the details of carrying a child. ("You not supposed to eat breakfast if you want a girl.") In each of their cases, the identity of the father is barely an afterthought. Talisha and Margie have boyfriends on tap, while Annie has a plan to use Malik, a classmate she barely knows and has never dated. It never occurs to any of these young ladies that this might constitute reckless behavior; they are determined to be adults -- they even lock pinkies and swear to it.

Clearly, Margie, Talisha, and Annie are a three-way car wreck waiting to happen, and much of the suspense generated by Milk Like Sugar has to do with when this plan will unravel and how. The narrative focuses on Annie, who, while trying, and failing, to become pregnant, begins to wonder if she might not make better use of her life. Among the obstacles facing her, Malik resists being used as a kind of fertilizing device. Noting Annie's unsolicited attentions, he wonders, suspiciously, "This doesn't have to do with my phone, does it?" (In their world, possession of the latest and most accessorized smartphone makes one a hot social prospect.) Then there's Keera, who befriends Annie; she is smart, overweight, devoted to the Bible, and skeptical of conspicuous consumption. As she tells Annie, "Your friends need the Good Word. They need to sit down and have a good long conversation with their hearts 'stead of the Home Shopping Channel." Offering another, more jaded, point of view is Myrna, Annie's mother, who sees no appeal in children having children and can't tolerate Keera's religiosity. "I like to see the Holy Ghost fry some chicken up, I surely would," she sneers, a cigarette permanently dangling from her mouth.

With such violently conflicting role models, what's a confused adolescent to do? The best thing about Milk Like Sugar is Greenidge's knack for showing how what first appears to a schoolgirl's daydream turns into a deadly serious proposition, with consequences far beyond anyone's imagining. She's also good at illuminating the ways in which poverty, neglect, and non-existent self-esteem act as spurs, egging on Annie and her friends in the delusion that raising a child will provide them with unconditional love. (The title is a reference to powdered milk, a non-nutritious food product that represents the secondhand, junk-filled culture that stunts their growth.)

A new name in New York theatre, despite a number of productions elsewhere, the author's assurance shows in her ability to take the character's "slanguage" and give it little bursts of poetry and wit. ("Last term your report card look like the side of a milk carton. D, D, D," Annie tells Talisha.) Greenidge's relative inexperience shows in the way she over-relies on certain symbols -- including Malik's telescope, seen here as a symbol of academic striving, and Annie's flame tattoo, a sign of her scarlet-woman aspirations.) At times, the playwright states her themes too baldly. "I can text all night and still feel all alone," sighs Annie, in an especially redundant moment.

Still, under Rebecca Taichman's fast-paced direction, you find yourself torn between attending closely to each mordant detail of the girls' lives and wanting to look away as Annie, Talisha, and Margie come to painful grips with the real meaning of teenage motherhood. As Annie, Angela Lewis tends to externalize her emotions a little too much -- in a couple of instances, she's guilty of borderline mugging -- but she's a generally appealing figure, at times almost heartbreaking in her innocence. Cherise Booth's Talisha is a convincingly tougher customer -- "I dish it out, Annie," she says, recalling a fight that left her with a black eye -- and she offers a harrowing account of a shopping trip with her abusive boyfriend. J. Mallory McCree is quietly charismatic as Malik, who isn't above selling his ailing mother's drugs to finance his education, and Adrienne C. Moore is touching as Keera, whose vision of a happy family life isn't all that it seems. The role of Myrna, a would-be writer who cleans offices at night, is one that Tonya Pinkins -- with her bloodcurdling stare and knife-edge sarcasm -- could probably play in a coma, but she is nevertheless remarkably hair-raising in the ugly mother-daughter confrontation ("And who told you you so goddamn special?") that climaxes the play.

Mimi Lien's simple, yet effective, setting consists of a wall, edged in red fiber-optic lighting, that moves up and downstage; the actors bring on pieces of furniture as needed for each scene. (Taichman's staging of the transitions is notably graceful.) Justin Townsend's lighting makes extensive and effective use of red sidelight; he goes over the top with flame-inspired effects during one sequence of desperate adolescent sex, but otherwise his work is finely judged. Toni-Leslie James' costumes included some remarkably detailed examples of youthful ghetto fashions. Among Talisha's outfits are a pair of skin-tight jeans -- one leg is black, the other in a leopard print. Marge has a seemingly endless number of monochromatic looks, relying on hot pinks and orange. These contrast brilliantly with Keera's modest, matronly blouses and skirts, and Myrna's garish "special outfit," worn when she thinks she's about to get a promotion. Andre Pluess' sound design includes his own music, the selection from Beyoncé, and such effects as airplanes, school bells, and flames. In this world, everyone has his or her own special ringtone, a requirement that Pluess fulfills handily.

The fact that the audience is one step ahead of the characters in Milk Like Sugar doesn't really matter; they're so likable that it's hard not to hope against hope that Greenidge will spare them from making self-destructive choices. By the time she contrives to put Annie and Malik together for what is most likely a farewell date, the author has fulfilled her audience's worst fears while keeping them attentive to the details of each character's fate. She has a natural storytelling gift that bodes well for her future.--David Barbour