Tragedy constricts life of ‘Neat,’ but not her soul
In Charlayne Woodard’s “Neat,” after the young Black narrator going to school with white kids realizes “I knew next to nothing about my own people,” she propels herself to the library and into African dance and activism.
By the time she graduates from high school, not only she does know more about her people, young Charlayne has made sure we will remember them, too.
Renaissance Theaterworks has revived its 2012 production of Woodard’s one-actor drama, which the company also toured to South Africa, as a video on demand for ticketholders. In the production directed by Suzan Fete and videoed by Studio Gear, Marti Gobel once again plays all the characters. Woodard’s script, inspired by her family history, meshes smoothly with Gobel’s animated storytelling style. Both the playwright and the actor have a touch of griot in them. True to her form, Gobel makes sure every word gets delivered.
“Neat” opens with tragedy: After being given the wrong medicine, baby Beneatha (Neat) Harris is rushed to a Savannah hospital, only to be refused treatment there, a whites-only facility. By the time she gets to doctors who
will treat her, it’s too late to forestall her brain damage. While lively and fearless, Neat has intermittent seizures and will always need looking after.
She becomes young Charlayne’s favorite aunt; early segments dramatize their bucolic adventures in the South. Later, when Neat comes to live with teenage Charlayne’s family in upstate New York, her niece is sometimes discomforted or embarrassed by her. Anyone who grew up with a specialneeds family member should be able to relate to the emotional ups and downs Charlayne experiences, and the unique bond she has with her aunt.
“Neat” is also Charlayne’s comingof-age story. A question from her aunt launches her into exploring Black heritage and consciousness — growing a natural Afro, learning South African dance, taunting her father with an Angela Davis poster on the wall. (These scenes reminded me that Beneatha is also the name of the Afrocentric young woman in Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin in the Sun.”)
Charlayne also discovers that Neat has more awareness of, and frustration about, her limitations than the family may have realized.
Institutional racism constricts the lives of the Harris-Woodard family, but not their liveliness. “Neat” is filled with details that make them specific, not generic, including young Charlayne’s surprising passion for learning Hebrew and the family’s no-holds-barred volleyball.