Theatre in Review: On Sugarland (New York Theatre Workshop)

In Aleshea Harris' new play, On Sugarland is a graveyard-cum-shrine, dedicated to the many war dead from a small community, somewhere in the American South, that is home to several Black families. Less a cemetery than an elaborate piece of folk art, it is built on a foundation of tires painted blue and green and constructed of various objects of significance to those who have passed, including bottles, neckties, beads, ferns, combat boots, and an orange or two. On Sugarland is a similar assemblage, pulled together from aspects of Greek tragedy, magic realist plot devices (ghostly visitations, eruptions of bodily fluids), and odd bits of Charles Fuller and Ed Bullins, mixed with a touch of absurdist humor and linked with hip-hop interludes.

Such an approach is endemic to Harris, whose 2018 melodrama Is God Is was a revenge tale featuring a family that made the House of Atreus seem tame, along with scenes of Quentin Tarantino-style violence and allusions to spaghetti westerns. On Sugarland is ostensibly based on Sophocles' Philoctetes, although it only borrows a few things from this Trojan War drama, including a sort of Greek chorus known here as the Rowdy. But where Is God Is had an undeniable plot momentum, Harris' latest work is diffuse, a collection of narrative threads that feel insufficiently woven together. In the service of poetry, an air of vagueness is allowed to prevail.

The playwright assembles a lineup of unruly, troubled, wildly eccentric characters. First up is Sadie, an adolescent who never speaks to anyone onstage, although she addresses us in riveting monologues recalling how the women in her matrilineal line faced down and took out various male oppressors. Iola, Sadie's mother, died in the war -- exactly which war is never made clear -- and she is being raised, resentfully, by her aunt, Odella, who exists in a vodka-induced fog. Odella occasionally throws herself at Saul, a military veteran who, like Philoctetes, suffers from a rank, suppurating foot wound that refuses to heal. Saul, who wants only to return to combat, worries about his son, Addis, a "junior cadet" whose dream of joining up is forever thwarted because he is "different," presumably a euphemism for being on the spectrum. Addis, by the way, is in love with Odella, his former baby-sitter, and he presses his case with increasing ardor.

Saul presides over "hollering days," which are burial ceremonies for the war dead that include primal howls from those in attendance. Sugarland, the site of this ritual, is tended to by Tisha, a plain-spoken, plain-talking widow who mourns the loss of her son. She is forever sparring with her sister Evelyn, an aging hedonist and self-defined style icon who lords it over everyone, singing the praises of menopause. But why, at certain moments, does her body ooze blood? Other questions abound, including the exact circumstances of Iola's death and how Saul acquired his injury. (At one point, he says he stepped on a mine, but as Addis notes, the story keeps changing.)

Harris, who grew up an Army brat, is out to decry a war machine that gobbles up black and brown bodies for cannon fodder in an endless series of conflicts. Evelyn, angry at local recruiters, says, "They know what they're doing, gunning for our block, our young people." When Saul avers that the military provides good jobs with benefits, she snaps, "One cannot enjoy benefits if one is dead." The script is filled with such sharp exchanges but On Sugarland is marked by a ponderous dramatic framework of arias and orations. Sadie's accounts of her foremothers -- including one who kills three Rebel soldiers and a follies performer who brutally eliminates a heckler in the audience -- feature some of the play's most gripping writing, but she is little more than a vessel for these. The other characters exist on parallel tracks, repeatedly airing their dreams and baring their griefs but rarely interacting in a meaningful way: Saul searches for the officer who once recruited him, hoping to re-up. Addis defends Saul against slurs from members of the Rowdy. Odella wanders on the fringes, consumed with sorrow for the lover who, for reasons that are unclear, was buried unceremoniously. Evelyn's bizarre behavior includes trips to "the beach" -- a kiddie pool filled with bottled water.

Whether you are seduced into this semi-surreal landscape will probably depend on how you feel about the characters, each of whom is well-served by a first-rate cast. KiKi Layne, credibly playing a character half her age, brings a feverish intensity to Sadie's violent family history. Billy Eugene Jones' Saul clearly suffers from a psychological wound as penetrating as the damage done to his foot. With his ramrod posture, flat affect, and sir-yes-sir delivery, Caleb Eberhardt -- also playing much younger than his real age -- gives Addis a gung-ho manner that barely masks his inherent strangeness. Stephanie Berry's Evelyn has plenty of old-lady sass, and she is effectively countered by Lizan Mitchell -- fresh off her sterling performance in Cullud Wattah at the Public Theater -- as the no-nonsense Tisha. With her slightly unsteady gait and faintly slurred delivery, Adeola Role makes Odella into a convincingly lost soul.

But On Sugarland stubbornly remains a collection of elements that often feel strangely arbitrary. Saul's wound and Evelyn's blood secretions all but announce themselves as symbols, although of what it is hard to say. The hollering day ceremonies are vividly theatrical, but Saul's decision to stage "a pre-funeral" before returning to the battlefield is little more than a playwright's willful device. The sitcom sparring between Evelyn and Tisha, amusing as it is, comes from another play altogether. And Harris deals in language that is often allusive and frustratingly lacking in specificity; I can't entirely be sure, but it would appear as if Saul's foot was gnawed off by a metaphor.

Even with musical sequences, choreography by Raja Feather Kelly, and a climax that includes an explosive act of self-destruction, Whitney White's direction is strangely sluggish. The director stages individual scenes with considerable power but she can't do much about the play's stop-and-start action. Nevertheless, a striking production design goes a long way toward supporting Harris' vision, with its blend of fantastic and naturalistic elements. Adam Rigg's two-level set, featuring a trio of mobile homes, an oval stage deck surrounded by railroad tracks, and Sugarland, is imaginative and eminently stageworthy. Amith Chandrashaker's lighting fluently switches between meticulously layered washes and floods of bold, saturated colors; he also makes appropriately jarring use of blinder cues in a climactic moment. Qween Jean's costumes are always right for the characters; she has plenty of fun with Evelyn's fashions, which include a white satin beauty pageant ensemble complete with opera gloves and tiara. Mikaal Sulaiman's evocative sound design features effects as horns at reveille, gunshots, explosions, and train whistles; he also co-composed the incidental music with Starr Busby.

Harris' previous works, including Is God Is and the often produced What to Send Up When It Goes Down, were both provocative and problematic, but leavened with a furious, clarifying wit. Here, despite Evelyn's calculatedly outrageous antics, a certain sententiousness creeps in, a preference for speechmaking over action. In On Sugarland the playwright creates an original world onstage, but she ultimately exhausts, letting her characters repeat themselves at length; no lamentation should be as long and as insistent as this. --David Barbour