Skeleton Crew – Family is Where You Find It
Unlike a considerable part of Black theater this season (and last), Skeleton Crew is not a play (or polemic) about race relations and/or lack of representation. Its characters, who suffer low income backgrounds, lack of opportunity, and an economically historical moment, might just as easily not be African Americans. The piece concerns human beings drawn to one another when compelled to share challenging circumstances.
The setting is an auto plant in 2008 Detroit. Jobless rates were at 29 percent. Homes were often abandoned, burned out, factories closed. The city was $300 million in debt. Weakened by the recession, especially substantial increase in the price of automotive fuel linked to the energy crisis, the American auto industry took an enormous hit. Layoffs were massive.
A showy robot-like dance by (and choreographed by) Adesola Osakalumi, all encompassing video of giant machine action (Nicholas Hussong), and loud music/mechanical noise (Saul C. Rabinowitz) acts as punctuation between scenes. The triumvirate responsible are highly skilled, but parenthetic effect takes us away from human issues and is consistently distracting.
Phylicia Rashad (Faye) and Brandon J. Dirden (Reggie)
The onslaught is replaced by radio snippets describing riots. Faye (Phylicia Rashad) enters the factory break room and defiantly lights a cigarette while glaring at a printed No Smoking sign on which her name is handwritten. With 29 years on the line, the most tenured employee and union liaison is waiting for her 30 year pension without a concrete thought towards the future. She’s the plant’s “god mother.”
Next in to work is Shanita (Chanté Adams), a thirtyish pregnant woman who won’t discuss her “baby daddy,” but despite her difficult situation, joyfully looks forward to motherhood. Last to clock in is Dez (Joshua Boone), a young man about her age saving to open an auto repair shop. Dez wears anger and frustration like a jacket, yet is immensely solicitous to Shanita.
Co-workers are joined by Unit Foreman, Reggie (Brandon J. Dirden), who’s quietly trying to make sure employees get a fair shake when the plant closes. (This is the kind of man who brings a heater for the room from home.) Reggie is also struggling with keeping the facility running in the face of increasing attrition, on premises gambling, and thievery. Unable to bear the secret of imminent closure, he confides in Faye. (It seems she was his mother’s romantic partner and, in fact, got him his job.) She warily agrees to temporary silence, perhaps in part because she also has a secret.
Huddling together against harsh realities, characters grow closer. Dez is drawn to Shanita, Faye is maternal with the young people. Reggie is protective of employees, especially the seemingly unassailable Faye. Bosses remain predictably unsympathetic. The future is uncertain.
Joshua Boone (Dez) and Chanté Adams (Shanita)
Playwright Dominique Morriseau draws solid/credible characters, interesting while not surprising. She follows in the footsteps of August Wilson’s traditional structure, craftsmanship, and depiction of “regular” people. Actors are given much on which to chew. Like Wilson, Morriseau has written a trilogy: Detroit 67, Paradise Blue, and Skeleton Crew. The three plays were inspired by an article authored by her father in The Workers League for Michigan titled Workers Are the Power in This Country. Like Wilson, she paints universal experience using historically Black circumstances.
The otherwise reliable Phylicia Rashad has an unfortunate tendency to run her lines together at the show’s start obscuring early dialogue. She goes on to create a well grounded Faye – pragmatic, determined, honorable. Joshua Boone manifests both vulnerability and yearning without shedding Dez’s habitual armor. Chanté Adams is sympathetic. The standout here is Brandon J. Dirden whose palpable internal conflicts play out forceful and layered until they explode.
Director Ruben Santiago-Hudson, also responsible for superior productions of most of August Wilson’s canon, does a superb job with pacing, stage business, and characterization. His talent has become an assumption.
The break room is evocatively designed by Michael Carnahan whose sense of texture, disrepair, and detail are excellent.
A satisfying play well executed.
Photos by Matthew Murphy
Opening photo: Joshua Boone, Brandon J. Dirden, Phylicia Rashad, Chante Adams
Manhattan Theatre Club presents
Skeleton Crew by Dominique Morriseau
Directed by Ruben Santiago-Hudson
Through February 20, 2022
Samuel J. Friedman Theatre
261 West 47th Street
