Theatre in Review: Skeleton Crew (Atlantic Theater Stage 2)Remember the old adage, "As GM goes, so goes the nation?" In Dominique Morisseau's tense, involving new drama, GM is going off a cliff, along with the rest of the auto industry. It's 2008, the year of the Wall Street meltdown and, as always, if conditions are bad, they're worse in Detroit, the most snake-bit of major American cities. The action unfolds in one of the smaller auto parts factories that have long supplied the major car manufacturers. Places like these were once loaded with good union jobs; for blacks, like the play's characters, they provided a route to the middle class. Now, with the economy in freefall, prospects are grim. Worker attrition is the order of the day -- the play's title is not a metaphor -- and gangs are raiding the factory at night for spare parts; even worse, rumors are flying that the place will be shut down. Hearing about yet another closure, somebody says, nervously, "That make us the last small factory standing now, ain't it?" Each of Skeleton Crew's four characters feels the pressure even as Morisseau skillfully weaves them into a web of friendships, dependencies, and rivalries. Faye, the union representative, comes across at first as a wisecracking, tough-talking lady of a certain age -- she enters with a salty, laugh-earning line about hot flashes -- but we quickly learn that she's on the skids, clandestinely spending her nights in the factory's break room because she has nowhere else to go. Her homelessness is partly due to personal demons -- for reasons not revealed until late in the play -- but it's also true that her breast cancer treatments have eaten up her savings and, as a lesbian, she has alienated her adult son, a Christian, leaving her profoundly alone with a rapidly dwindling set of options. The much-younger Shanita, who operates a pressing machine, is several months pregnant and suddenly facing a future with no husband and possibly no job. (The child's father is long gone.) Dez, the group's designated rule-breaker, spends much of his time getting into hot water with management and trying to make time with Shanita. Dez has dreams of starting his own auto repair shop -- but then, why does he hide a gun in his locker? Riding herd on them all is Reggie, the foreman, who walks an impossible line, trying to hold everything together while earning scant thanks from management or workers. "I don't have a union to protect me," he bitterly notes. In truth, the most anyone can hope for is to hang on until closing day, an endgame that offers the prospect of a decent severance package and possibly a placement somewhere else. The constant uncertainty wears everyone down, inflaming tempers and exposing deep wounds. At the heart of things is the complex Reggie - Faye relationship. She deeply loved -- and was loved by -- Reggie's mother, and she got Reggie his start in the industry. He has confided in her that the factory is doomed but has sworn her to silence, making her complicit in the betrayal of the others. She is too proud to ask him for help, even as her life unravels. Meanwhile, Dez's behavior spins out of control, leading to widespread suspicion that he is part of the gang ripping off the factory. When Faye condemns the thieves, he responds, furiously, "You think any of this is moral? Keep us workin' these presses 'til we pull a fuckin' shoulder blade and then replace us in a heartbeat when we can't keep up the production. You think this ship sinks the captain's going down? Y'all got blind faith in a crew that don't even eat lunch with you." It's strong stuff, forcefully delivered in Ruben Santiago-Hudson's crackling production, which features four exceptionally fine performances. Lynda Gravatt grumbles and growls with conviction as Faye, lighting a cigarette in brazen defiance of factory rules (and her illness); she also captures the sad furtiveness with which Faye stashes her clothing out of view, sneaking back into the break room after everyone else has gone home. And when handed an aria filled with revelations about the bad choices and bad luck that have driven her to such a desperate place, she is all but guaranteed to break your heart. ("One minute you passin' the woman on the freeway holdin' up the 'will work for food' sign. Next minute, you sleepin' in your car.") Nikiya Mathis' Shanita amuses when fending off Dez's advances, but, pondering the offer of a job as a copy shop manager, she gives a shining reading of a speech in praise of her life as a skilled industrial worker, an achievement that has given her an important foundation of pride. Jason Dirden's Dez is sly, sneaky, and capable of making some wickedly mordant points; in a moment of deadly irony, he recalls the youthful auto accident that left him with a scar on his neck. ("And all them folks kept sayin', if that car wasn't made good, we'd be dead.") Wendell B. Franklin captures Reggie's slow-burning frustration, whether he's staging a tense confrontation with Dez, pounding the workers' lockers in a rage, or sadly noting, "I look like I'm disappearing from myself." Some of the workplace banter, and a couple of situations -- particularly the sexual banter between Dez and Shanita -- are familiar, but what constantly impresses is how Morisseau constantly complicates her characters with touches of individuality. Here, as in her earlier play, Detroit '67, she displays a remarkable grasp of the city's long fall from grace and how it provides an unflattering image of race relations, white flight, and urban decay in the American heartland. Adding to the production's grittily realistic quality is Michael Carnahan's set depicting the break room with its lockers, orange counters, and plastic furniture. Rui Rita's meticulous lighting blends fluorescent, incandescent, and various time-of-day natural light to create a variety of subtly varied looks. Paul Tazewell's costumes feel totally authentic. Rob Kaplowitz's sound design combines ambient factory-floor effects with original songs by Jimmy "J. Keys" Keys; the latter feature hip-hop movement sequences choreographed by and featuring Adesola Osakalumi. These also feature enormous images of the factory interior projected onto the set. Skeleton Crew reaches a gripping resolution when one of the characters makes an enormous sacrifice to preserve the status quo, at least for a little while; it may only be then that one realizes how well-constructed Skeleton Crew is. In any case, with her wide-angle view of one American city's history, Morisseau is making her mark. "Maybe we need a whole new city," Shanita says at one point; maybe she and the others do, but, for their author, Detroit is proving to be a bottomless source of good material. -- David Barbour 
|
