Despite contrasting styles, ‘Skeleton Crew’ builds empathy
Play both reflects on the economy and serves as ode to working class
The Alley Theatre’s “house style” is best characterized by former company member Josie de Guzman, a diva of the stage whose larger-than-life presence meant never approximating the behavior of an actual human being. It’s a workable technique for some situations, such as keeping the back-row audience of the Alley’s 774-seat Hubbard Theatre awake during a Shakespeare, Dickens or Agatha Christie production.
Think obvious gestures of the hand, accented facial expressions, a gait that involves the entire body, like a dancer in a Michael Jackson video. The voice is loud and bright so that each syllable remains clear. The emotions are mimed, drawing attention to themselves. Every choice leans on the obvious.
The prima donna of the terrific play “Skeleton Crew” — at the Alley through Oct. 7 — is Broadway actress Lizan Mitchell. She’s decidedly Guzmanesque here. Her performance is so big that at times the meager 310-seat Neuhaus Theatre cannot hold all of it. And she nearly makes it work.
In a more classical or comedic play, the “Alley style” (not to imply that the technique originates at the company) feels stellar. Presence is the most important quality for a stage actor. But Dominique Morisseau’s fantastic “Skeleton Crew” is too small and too intimate. Mitchell’s style is thus misplaced. It distracts from a story about four workers at a factory in Recessionera Detroit, a naturalistic drama whose success hinges on imitating life, not exploding into something else.
Otherwise, “Skeleton Crew” is both an eye-opening reflection of the post-2008 American economy and a poignant, personal ode to the working class. The title is a reference to the phrase that describes the bare minimum number of people required to keep an operation going. It’s a situation far too many audiences will relate to (an interactive exhibit outside the theater revealed that most Alley theatergoers have experienced layoffs and firings).
The drama takes place in the break room. Rumors swirl of a plantwide shutdown. When the characters speak about working, dreaming, loving, gambling and smoking, their words often spin into poetry. It’s as if Morisseau, knowing their plight, gifts them these elegies so they may properly mourn the loss of security, community and home.
Candice D’Meza and Brandon Morgan play younger workers who love their job. They love using their hands, saving money to pursue their dreams. D’Meza plays a talented worker on the line who is about to become a single mother. She brings humor, relatability and a natural rhythm to the production. Morgan is impossible to dislike, playing a kindhearted, hardworking man whose fiery personality and bad manners get him in trouble with his supervisor.
These actors know the play they’re in.
David Rainey, a dominant force as the supervisor Reggie, is caught between their style and Mitchell’s. Though Rainey and Mitchell are huge presences, they find themselves in spitting and yelling contests that undercut the subtleties of losing an American way of life. But in the first few scenes of Act 2, the writing is so crisp and heart-wrenching that even the Guzman Method works.
Meanwhile, Rainey’s role could easily have been that of a villain. Yet his Reggie character will surprise you the most.
Then there is the wonderfully miscast Mitchell, who has performed in this play professionally before. She plays the senior-most worker in the factory, who acts as a mentor not only to the younger workers but to her supervisor. Maybe Mitchell’s style works, in a twisted way, because her character is hiding so much pain and therefore compensates with such bravado and authority. But I found her mishmash of expressions hard to read, and therefore difficult to sympathize with.
Still, this is a play that builds empathy. It’s a no-brainer choice for the leaderless Alley Theatre, still in search of a vision, still clinging to aesthetic traditions that don’t always serve contemporary plays. Overall, though, “Skeleton Crew” is a sign of hope. It’s Houston’s largest theater company saying yes to hiring terrific local actors of color to tell a story that makes theater feel not only relevant but even necessary. I say yes, too. Let’s make more, better theater like this.