Keeping it real

Getting to the heart of rage The Mojo and the Sayso

by Bill Rodriguez

THE MOJO AND THE SAYSO. By Aishah Rahman. Directed by Donald W. King. With Stephanie Berry, Raidge, Kevin Gibbs, James McLean. At Providence Black Repertory Company through October 24.

If black rage is unimaginable from outside the experience, its sources aren't. The Mojo and the Sayso, by Aishah Rahman, goes to the heart of the matter, takes the resulting rage as a given, and spins out a compelling mythopoetic fable that is at times as funny as it is furious, in its Providence premiere at the Providence Black Repertory Company.

It is dedicated in part to Clifford Glover, a 10-year-old boy who was shot dead in 1973 alongside his stepfather by New York City police looking for an adult burglar. But the play takes the politics of oppression for granted and resists preaching to the choir. Rahman tells of the Benjamin family, who lost a boy this same way, but the real story is of how they coped with such an obscene crime without self-destructing.

Son Walter (Kevin Gibbs), who insists on being called Blood, has taken to guns and a gangsta pose as his shield and weapon. Mother Awilda (Stephanie Berry) has Jesus and the church, personified by a charismatic pastor (James McLean). But the father, Acts (hip-hop performer Raidge), has the mojo with the mostess. Smack in the middle of their living room is a rare 1947 car he's been tinkering with for years, pouring into it all the hard work and care and aspiration for perfection he can muster. Thanks to set designer Jeremy Woodward (and Providence Auto Body), it gives sleek and tangible substance to the symbolism.

These stays against confusion are their mojos, their magical devices to orient themselves, their touchstones for what is substantial in a world where little boys are murdered by public protectors who then go free. That's Acts's way of looking at life, coupled with a sense of humor in dealing with his demanding wife. As he tells his remaining son, "The right mojo will give you the sayso. Put you in the driver's seat. The right mojo will take you over those moments of terror, doubt or even surprise."

This isn't presented naturalistically. As she did with the hard-hitting Only in America at Perishable Theatre two years ago, Rahman gives characters lengthy and lyrical passages and monologues to define themselves and express the manias they have devised to get through life. Here she fashions the monologues like jazz solos, in which the actors' rhythms of phrasing are improvised like jazz riffs. Another model for the play is the Kuntu drama of African tradition, using music and sound to convey spiritual themes to us, energized with the piano of Thelonious Monk and the voice of Aretha Franklin.

Rahman, a professor who teaches playwriting at Brown University, gives weight and momentum to the lyrical thrust of the play rather than to the story, which is slim and schematic. A check for a wrongful death payment has arrived from the city, though how or whether that will change their lives remains to be seen. Also at the outset, Acts' refusal to tell what happened the morning his son was shot down next to him sets up an expected last scene revelation, which with the build-up is destined to be either pretentious or somewhat flat. (Fortunately, it's the latter.) Raidge delivers a convincing portrayal, though, accenting the patient and peaceful nature Acts is cultivating, although his eventual explosion doesn't seem to come from deep enough within.

As portrayed, his son Blood displays flashes of what Rahman must have intended with the character, but Gibbs has trouble balancing the tension between fulminating rage and the restraint Blood's heart is urging. The playwright has him hurting his father as he massages his aching muscles; then he messes around with his car and tools, passive-aggressive on all cylinders. But, under director Donald W. King, Gibbs plays the scene as trivial horsing around. It doesn't help that Rahman muddles the role, with Blood refusing to put bullets in his guns and yet wanting to be someone who will "pour down hot revenge on his enemies, because he had a brother once."

As Awilda, Berry draws from considerable film and TV as well as theater experience to give us a sturdy portrayal. Her long speech on putting a monetary value on the life of a boy is a heartrender, nailing Rahman's poetry. The mother is tormented that her remaining son "walks around with a bomb in his heart." Her mojo is a sublimating and sexualized Christianity and, representing the purity she hopes to find there, a pair of immaculate white gloves she recently bought. A more entertaining physical representation of what she needs is in the person of the pastor, whom we eventually meet. McLean makes the oily ranter a powerhouse of charismatic oratory, as Rahman, a Muslim convert, turns him into the embodiment of demonic avarice, albeit an entertainingly ludicrous one.

After successful performances here and there around the country, and good notices even in the New York Times, The Mojo and the Sayso finally comes to Providence, where its author lives. A dozen years after its creation, much of its magical and evocative potential is on display in this production.