Crowns by Regina Taylor and directed by her at Dallas Theater Center is one of the most poorly crafted plays I've seen in a long time - a good premise gone awry. It tells of the importance of hats to African-American women and dates back to the time when the only place slaves could gather was at church; so that's where they went all out to dress in style, and hats were all important. The Bible says a woman's head must be covered; so they wore their finest hats to church.
The play opens with a disenchanted young girl sent to live with her grandmother in South Carolina after the death of her brother. She engages in a frenetic and cacophonous, barely intelligible hip-hop number followed by a gospel song accompanied by fluid movements of the six older women in the cast, as they strip off their coats to reveal some great costumes.
The only redeeming musical number comes early in the play, as the women don hats for a rousing version of "When The Saints Go Marching In." From there it's all down hill. The actresses constantly break the fourth wall as they directly address the audience to tell about hat etiquette. They carry this out ad nauseum. The rebellious young lady says she never wears hats, and while the other cast members sing and prance, this girl sits stage left looking as bored and disconnected as I felt. First and foremost "the play's the thing," and this one is a bloody awful, disjointed mess. It all drags on for two full hours without an intermission.
Crowns is a total waste of some of the best talent to be seen on a Dallas stage. It includes local regulars M. Denise Lee and Liz Mikel, who never disappoint. Also outstanding is Miche Braden.
