Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Zora Howard’s boisterous new play STEW stealthily inverts the kitchen sink drama for its own end

• By drediman
• February 13, 2020
• No Comments

Toni Lachelle Pollitt, Portia, Kristin Dodson, and Nikkole Salter in Page 73’s production of “Stew” by Zora Howard at the Walkerspace Theater. Photo: Jeremy Daniel.

I recently had the opportunity to attend a performance of Stew, a new play by Zora Howard receiving its world premiere staging via Page 73 (a company that has nurtured and championed the early careers of some of today’s most accomplished playwrights) at the Walkerspace Theater in Soho. Taking place over the course of a morning in a modest home in Mt. Vernon, NY, the play depicts the joys and squabbles of three generations of black women, who have congregated in the matriarch’s kitchen to whip up a large meal for an unspecified church function.

The play stealthily works on a number of levels. On the surface, Stew is the epitome of the kitchen sink drama, complete with family melodrama and feisty feuds. But just like Jackie Sibblies Drury’s Fairview, Stew uses and inverts familiar vernacular to explore something more existential – that is, the chronic issues of being black in America. But unlike last year’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play – which jarringly busted through the fourth wall as a result of that play’s structural and stylistic boldness – Ms. Howard’s play more subtly and only gradually reveals its ulterior motive. This is both a blessing and a curse, meaning that some in the audience may simply miss the point of the whole thing. And this is just fine, too, since the play has been given such an enjoyably boisterous production by director Colette Robert.

Indeed, the production’s quite fabulous quartet of actresses – Kristin Dodson, Toni Lachelle Pollitt, Portia, and Nikkole Salter – act the heck out of the piece, playing up stereotypes of black women to an almost uncomfortable level, which is especially evident within the extremely intimate confines of the Walkerspace (coincidentally, also the birthplace of Fairview). Given the work’s superficial focus on the titular dish, my only disappointment is that some actual cooking didn’t transpire live onstage; I guess I’ve been spoiled by recent productions that have capitalized on their set’s working kitchen (MCC’s production of Seared quickly comes to mind). But maybe such abstractions is the point. Such is the stealthy, haunting mechanisms of Ms. Howard’s Stew.

RECOMMENDED

STEW
Off-Broadway, Play
Page 73 / Walkerspace Theater
1 hour, 30 minutes (without an intermission)
Through February 22