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Five Rooms of Furniture
by Dhana-Maria Branton
directed by Jonathan Wilson
Through September 15, 2002
Organic Theatre Company
Loyola University of Chicago,
Kathleen Mullady Memorial Theatre
1125 W. Loyola
Chicago, Illinois
Box office: (773) 561-5600
http://www.organictheatre.com
Dhana-Maria Branton's Five Rooms of Furniture is a well-made play -- in the true Shavian sense. The structure is formulaic, even mechanical; and the subject matter is sometimes all too familiar. But Branton succeeds in treating her material "wittily and ingeniously, at moments almost poetically, and [in] giving the persons of the drama some touches of real observed character." (George Bernard Shaw, "How to Write a Popular Play (1909)," Preface to Three Plays by Brieux (New York: Brentano, 1911).) Branton's play is premiered in an excellent production by the Organic Theatre Company. Even though Jonathan Wilson's thoughtful, yet sometimes plodding, direction tends to emphasize the "well-made" structure of Five Rooms of Furniture, it results in marvelously nuanced performances by the five actors who portray two generations of an African-American family residing in present-day Chicago.
Shaw observed that at the center of the plot of the well-made play is a misunderstanding. Such a plot frames the misunderstanding, explains how the misunderstanding comes about, introduces the clueless characters to the audience, and finally clears up the misunderstanding. In Five Rooms of Furniture, the title itself points to one of the play's mysteries involving the quantity and quality of five rooms of furniture. Yet this is not the pivotal misunderstanding of this play. That misunderstanding involves an incident in the past that is affecting the relationships of the members of the family in the present. Therein lies a dramaturgical conundrum that Branton solves by simply linking both misconceptions into a single plot. This structural solution is too facile for the weighty issues that the play takes on.
The title refers to five warehouse rooms of antique fine furniture that a wealthy Holocaust survivor bequeathed to her gardener, Rufus, a disabled senior citizen who lives in the basement of a home on the south side of Chicago with his sister, Ina Mae, and his niece, Vernell, and her husband, Gary, who has been discharged from the Army because of his mental illness. Rufus has purposely concealed the true amount and nature of his inheritance from his family. The treasure trove is hidden away in a warehouse, where only Gary knows the exact location. The family believes that Rufus inherited some other pieces of old, battered furniture like the ones that are scattered around his basement apartment -- a dining room table, a Victrola, a tea table. Ina Mae believes that Rufus will give the furniture to Vernell, when she finally has a home of her own. Rufus finally reveals his secret when his Navy officer daughter, Rachel, comes to visit him, instead of merely sending post cards from around the world. Rachel and her brother, who is a physician married to a white woman, were raised by their mother, after the break-up of their parents' marriage. Rachel, who is about to leave her post in the Navy because of her alcoholism, tells Rufus that she wants to open -- of all things -- an antique furniture store. She wants the Victrola, in exchange for a new stereo that she brings him, and some of the other old furniture she remembers from her childhood for her store. Rufus decides to reveal the magnitude of his treasure trove to her and promises to give her some of the furniture. So ends the plot of the first misunderstanding; so begins the plot of the central misunderstanding.
Rufus' promise to Rachel exposes conflicts within the family, though there is enough furniture for all to share. Up to this point in the play, Branton has delineated her characters in a series of dialogues that have framed the nature of their relationships. These dialogues are somewhat clumsily staged since they often necessitate the exit of one or more characters to leave only two characters on the stage. This is less a problem with the direction than with the set. Brenda Sabatka's scene design works graphically but not functionally. Rufus's basement apartment is a great hodgepodge of old antique furniture, functional appliances, and junk. But the antique table placed downstage obscures important sight lines. Several old television sets are nicely placed in the corner under the stairway which leads to the living quarters of the Ina Mae, Vernell, and Gary. Yet, the entrances and exits on this stairway are slow and awkward -- even when they are not supposed to be. No exit or entrance through the doorway to the outside was effortless or smooth.
Each one of the two-person scenes dramatizes the same predominant emotions: disappointment and mistrust -- between sister and brother, husband and wife, mother and daughter, father and daughter, cousins, aunt and niece. The revelation that resolves the misunderstanding that has engendered these feelings involves the horrors of the Jim-Crow South -- lynching and rape -- and its effects -- self-hatred, greed, and envy. These are all-too-familiar topics in black theatre; and Branton does little more than introduce these weighty subjects in various monologues.
Nevertheless, there is nothing formulaic, and everything sure and insightful in Branton's delineation of her charcters and the ensemble's fine portrayals. Five Rooms of Furniture brings five fresh, non-stereotyped black voices to the American stage. Branton is near-perfect in capturing the wit, the pain, and the poetry that forms the humanity of her characters. Ernest Perry, Jr's Rufus, is not a raging and embittered ghetto codger, but a sensitive gardener who is able to demonstrate love, disappointment, and finally hope. LaDonna Tittle delivers the most obligatory of Ina Mae's speeches about the horrors of the Jim Crow South with a passion and intensity that elevates her above the "mammy-matriarch" stereotype. Her performance especially is enhanced by Alex Wren Meadows's costume design. Ina Mae is no frumpy matriarch; even as she descends the basement stairs her attire and her stylish haircut displays her indomitable pride and dignity. Penelope Walker, hidden under an old-fashioned wig, is just marvelous as the timid, gentle, but fainthearted wife, daughter, and niece. Young, handsome, and athletic, Stefano Mizell successfully plays against type in his portrayal of the suicidal, lost Gary. Sandra Watson's portrayal of Rachel is masterfully complex and restrained. From her entrance in Navy uniform, with ethnic braids -- and gin in her water bottle -- she is in charge, materialistic and manipulative, yet vulnerable.
Dhana-Maria Branton's Five Rooms of Furniture is indeed a well-made play. This appellation is, finally, less critique than tribute.
Five Rooms of Furniture. Dhana-Marie Branton's drama about an African-American family on Chicago's south side is directed by Jonathan Wilson in its world premiere. Organic Theater Company, Loyola University Chicago, Kathleen Mullady Memorial Theatre, Centennial Forum, 1125 W. Loyola, 773-561-5600. Through September 15: Wednesdays-Saturdays, 8 PM; Sundays, 3 PM. $25-$30; Wednesdays are industry nights.
--Sandra Marie Lee
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