You don’t need a Gatesian bankroll to make exceptional theater as Eclipse Theatre Company is proving with its current production of Breath Boom at the Athenaeum.
Playwright Kia Corthron’s look behind the veil at how the young cope in the very violent world of our inner cities feels like an indictment of all of the factors that frustrate their success. In Breath, Boom, the message does not sound didactic. By letting the story unfurl from the minds and voices of the characters, there is a much more personal connection made between cause and effect.
Using the female voice deepens the impact of the play. Conditioned to think of gang affiliation as the sole province of men, we forget that similar allegiances can be made among women with the same devastating results.
Opening with a savage beating as three girls attack a fourth, the brutality of the assault is deepened when we learn all of them share membership in the same group. The attack is meant to teach a lesson. The leader, Prix (BrittneyLove Smith), is only sixteen and is about as cold and dispassionate as a corpse. The scowl she wears is the face of someone whose light has been extinguished. When she says don’t be late for a drive by, you know she means it.
Only when she can create does Prix express joy. That’s when she lets her imagination fly and think about a future. Those moments are rare and her creative obsession of designing fireworks is as unorthodox as it is improbable.
Even at 16 she knows she can’t stay in the game much longer. In two years, she’d be charged as an adult for anything she’d be arrested for.
It’s a common plight. The laws of the street overrule the remoteness of dreams and she eventually finds herself behind bars. It’s there we see most clearly that the connective bond that ties these stilted lives together is intractable poverty. It can make the sale your body for a Big Mac or being a mule to pay for your kid’s school shoes completely plausible.
Breath, Boom boasts a wonderfully strong supporting cast. Some of the most impressive were found in lockup. Destiny Strothers’ portrayal of Cat, a 14-year-old arrested for prostitution hit like a lightning strike. Giddy, bold and oblivious to boundaries, she seemed as tough as she talked until the cracks started to appear. The acceptance of one’s death as something to be accepted soon rather than as a remote eventuality seemed as ludicrous as it was real. Picking out the dress you’d wear in your casket and choosing a play list for your funeral as a teenager put an unexpected face on nihilism.
Breath, Boom’s overriding strength is the distinct ring of its truth. Watching Prix go from an angry “gangsta” to a 28-year-old has been with enough inner integrity to regret made you wonder just how many thousands of her are out there. Children whose aspirational ceilings at birth is no higher than mere survival and would remain only that.
Eleanor Kahn’s set design was spare and on point. The cast was marvelous doing double duty as adroit stage hands between scenes.
Director Mignon McPherson Stewart wrung every ounce of goodness from this essential story of people the larger world pretend are invisible.
Without such a capable supporting cast, the impact of Breath, Boom could not have achieved its power.
Jalyn Green as Prix’s friend Angel, who after those twelve years continued to nurture their relationship, wowed everyone with her take on a no-nonsense mother on an outing with the kids. Megan Storti as Prix’s cell mate Denise was a great reminder at how complex and incongruous the ways of the streets can be.
Breath, Boom
November 12 – December 17
Eclipse Theatre Company
Athenaeum Theatre
2936 N. Southport Ave.
Chicago, IL 60657
Tickets: www.eclipsetheatre.com
