Power play
Sexual politics are at the core of Only in America
by Bill Rodriguez
ONLY IN AMERICA, by Aishah Rahman. Directed by Mark Lerman. With Nehassaiu deGannes, Ricardo
Pitts-Wiley, Marilyn Dubois, and Semenya McCord. At Perishable
Theatre through November 23.
If Anita Hill still dreams about the Clarence Thomas horror show of six years
ago, let's wish her one as redemptive as Aishah Rahman's Only In
America. The surreal and poetic riff on that appalling episode is a
powerful affirmation of women's defiant spirit in the face of our sniggering
culture at large. Its world premiere at Perishable Theatre is a worthy, if
belated, debut.
For three decades the oppression of women has been such an overworked subject
that even the devoutly converted can wince at a sermon. Strident essays from
the '60s can seem naïve and obvious. Well-intentioned observations can
sound like banal platitudes. But Rahman has adopted a writing style wonderfully
fit for making the familiar fresh. With a comical exuberance as unfettered as
commedia dell-arte and a language style as evocative and compact as
poetry, she has distilled the essence of an episode that enraged us so.
The victim is Cassandra Jackson (Nehassaiu deGannes), a young woman who can
only speak in gibberish. She is a Capitol Hill secretary for a bureaucratic
executive named Oral (Ricardo Pitts-Wiley), head of a department known as the
Animal Bureau of Civil Rights. Jeremy Woodward's marvelous set design
establishes the office scene with connotative precision. There are burgundy
leather chairs and a silver coffee service. The bureau name is engraved in faux
black marble along the top of a wall as golden as the window panes that look
out from Oral's catbird seat. The wall stage right is covered with stuffed
trophies, from ducks in flight to a sinister crow or raven ("Nevermore"?).
There is even the pheasant he mentions when tempting Cassandra with a
description of the opulent banquets she can indulge in if she learns to take
his sexual advances in stride.
The first woman we see helping Cassandra is Lilli (Marilyn Dubois), as in
lily-white, billed in the program as "a fair warrior," blond and just. (The
other characters are black.) She is a masseuse and is trying to get Cassandra
to speak by first relaxing her body. (Lilli lugs along more symbolic freight
than one character can bear -- being a musician and a seer as well -- but
little is belabored.)
The other helpmate is Act II's Scatwoman (Semenya McCord). She is literally
and figuratively a cleaning lady. Dressed in white and carrying a white mop and
bucket, she is at once the ignored black woman scrubbing in the background and
also a purifier. But instead of swabbing the floor, she sprinkles the floor
with sand in ritualistic fashion ("Catch dirt with dirt," she says). She
warbles soothing, jazzy scat syllables that communicate peace and joy while
sounding, literally, as nonsensical as Cassandra's inarticulate babblings.
Being articulate is the font of Oral's power and madness. Out of his mouth
pours glib, rational justifications for all he does, as he gets off on
fantasizing to her erotically and elaborately. He demeans his cringing
subordinate millimeters from her face, all the while stressing that she can't
say he ever touched her. To amusing effect, under Mark Lerman's direction, at
one point when he's leaning against a wall he seeks sympathy from a snarling
boars head he turns to. Pitts-Wiley has a couple of especially powerful scenes,
The first is Oral's extended verbal sexual assault on Cassandra -- practically
levitating in priapic transport. The second is a culminating word torrent,
where Oral is gushing over the power of being articulate, and where the actor
exceeds even his earlier delightful excess in his now verbal ejaculation.
But the heart and soul of this production is deGannes. Frail, beautiful,
vulnerable, powerful -- I can't imagine a more effective Cassandra. Uttering
nonsense syllables interspersed with recognizable English and French words
("Allatime lawdamercy c'est bon"), she maintains a tension between hope
to communicate and fear of never being able to. The tension is relieved
magnificently near the end, in an expected and obligatory empowerment scene
that nevertheless rings true to the character and the play. Here deGannes
breaks out of Cassandra's protective chrysalis and soars indeed. It's quite a
moment, and because it's earned, it isn't mawkish.
Only In America has some tediously paced stretches (yes, Oral, get on
with your litany already). And some moments fail to connect with the intended
emotion (we have to be told that Scatwoman has attained an epiphany, instead of
recognizing this on our own). But all in all, if the Clarence Thomas hearings
had been a tenth as illuminating, we'd all be glowing still.
Interview with Aishah Rahman