Theatre in Review: Wine in the Wilderness (Classic Stage Company)

	Olivia Washington, Lakisha May. Photo: Marc. J. Franklin

The strange case of Alice Childress continues to be a scandal of major proportions. Not nearly celebrated enough in her own time, she was promptly forgotten after her 1984 death. Yet, since 2021, each new Childress revival has proven eminently stageworthy, offering something pertinent to say to us today. So it is with Wine in the Wilderness; first seen on public television in 1969 with a cast that included Abbey Lincoln, it offers a twist on a standard romantic comedy format, putting it to the serious purpose of skewering classism and misogyny in the Black community while framing a vivid snapshot of Harlem under siege. La Chanze, the star of Trouble in Mind, which kicked off the Childress renaissance a few seasons back, here directs a taut, consistently engaging production. It's an eye-opener in more ways than one.

Arnulfo Maldonado's set shows both the interior of artist Bill Jameson's apartment and the facade of his building, a smart move because, as the play begins, the people of Harlem are rioting in the streets. Bill Toles' expansive sound design mixes sirens, crowds, shattering glass, gunshots, and more into an audio portrait of urban chaos. Fascinatingly, however, life goes on. Yes, Bill admits Oldtimer, a well-liked street character, toting his takings from a looting session (they include a new suit and a bottle of Johnny Walker). But Bill is intently focused on his new painting, a triptych focusing on three types of Black women: an innocent young girl in her white Sunday best, an idealized African goddess from the past, and, still unpainted, a "messed-up chick" from the mean streets of the 1960s. To Bill's mind, it's a trenchant comment on a lost heritage. That anyone might find the idea offensively misogynistic never occurs to him; on the contrary, he is using it to get into a new exhibition.

Sitting out the riot in a nearby bar are Bill's friends Sonny-man, a novelist, and his wife, Cynthia, a social worker. They've picked up a local gal, Tomorrow Marie, aka Tommy, and are convinced she's just the model to pose as Bill's fallen modern woman. Soon, cocktails are being served in Bill's apartment, and the wooing of Tommy has begun, with consequences nobody can predict.

Everything about the production's design is observant, beginning with the studied bohemian look of Bill's apartment, with its oriental rugs, stereo system, and cocktail cart. Dede Ayite cannily dresses Tommy in a mismatched blouse and skirt, underlining Tommy's insistence that she ran out for a quick errand, got caught in the riot, and returned to find her apartment boarded up by the police. Wig and hair designer Nikiya Mathis completes the look with an elaborate wig, a pile of straightened hair that contrasts starkly with Cynthia's natural look. (At first glance, the wig makes Tommy look like a member of an early 1960s girl group; the moment she removes it is, arguably, the play's turning point.)

Sharp, candid (she is alarmingly free with the N-word), funny, and not afraid to say what she wants, Tommy demands a Chinese dinner before sitting for Bill -- and the way she eyeballs him, she obviously sees him as the dessert. But she is being set up: Everybody treats her as an amusing social type, and nobody bothers to mention that her portrait is meant to be a scathing indictment. Left alone with Bill, a far more thoughtful woman emerges, and suddenly, the attraction is mutual. (By then, the wig is off, and she looks like another person altogether.) Just before heading to the bedroom, Tommy says, in a line typical of Childress' lyric naturalism, "I'm gonna take a bath and let the riot and the hell of living go down the drain with the bath water."

The next morning, however, the lovely sunshine arranged by lighting designer Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew proves a false dawn when Tommy gets wind of what Bill is up to. With all five characters present, a fiery Tommy reads them the riot act, exposing the hypocrisies of these cultural strivers and their bourgeois pretensions. (She is especially tough with Bill, who scorns his family, all of whom work for the post office.) In a community already at bay from police, prejudice, and economic oppression, people don't need more separation, she notes: "I'm going back to the nitty-gritty crowd, where the talk is we-ness and us-ness," she says. For once, Bill and the others have nothing to say.

Wine the Wilderness showcases Olivia Washington as Tommy, who barges onto the scene, makes a comic spectacle of herself, succumbs to Bill's wooing, and delivers a ringing denunciation, all while keeping her sense of self thoroughly intact. It's a great part and she seizes it with both hands, revealing new aspects of her character in each scene. You might not love everything Tommy says or does, but dismiss her at your peril; her honesty and angry self-acceptance cut through the atmosphere like a cold blast of common sense. The role of Bill could easily become irritating -- he begins innumerable lines with a variation on "The trouble with you women is...." but Grantham Coleman gives him multiple layers; he's a serious artist with a certain tenderness and the nerve to admit his foolishness. ("That chick on the canvas...nothin' but accessories, a dream I drummed up outta the junk room of my mind.") It doesn't hurt that he and Washington share a combustible chemistry.

Also in the cast, Brooks Brantly and Lakisha May are just right as the chic, attitudinizing, yet essentially likable Sonny-man and Cynthia; May has an especially telling moment when Cynthia quietly, bitterly notes that her college degree and career haven't been golden tickets to a new world of integration. As Oldtimer, whose real name nobody knows until Tommy gets him to say it, Milton Craig Nealy repeatedly steals the audience's attention and sympathy, touchingly representing an older Black generation blocked from equality at every turn.

Childress brings it all home with a finale that shows Bill attacking his triptych in an entirely new way, celebrating the diversity of the Black community. It's poignant to think that Childress was, in a way, rather like Tommy, too easily overlooked in a theatre scene dominated by men. But with one production after another, she keeps acing the test of time. A leaner piece of construction than Trouble in Mind or the recently revived Wedding Band, Wine in the Wilderness comes packed with plenty of fire in its belly. Every time I leave a Childress revival, I wonder, what else does she have? So far, the answers haven't disappointed. --David Barbour