Four extraordinary actors performing as the Universes ensemble delivered a powerful inspirational opening for Actors Theater of Louisville's 33rd annual Humana Festival of New American Plays with their incisive, gripping ruminations called Ameriville.
Inspired by Hurricane Katrina's devastating effect on New Orleans, the play moves through bursts of song, skillful character studies, strikingly effective sound and lighting, and vigorous monologues toward a damning critique of America "the greatest story ever told, bought, and sold" -- that yet holds hope as "a work in progress."
Gamal Abdel Chasten, Mildred Ruiz, William Ruiz a.k.a. Ninja, and Steven Sapp are almost constantly in motion under Chay Yew's energetic direction, which dramatically shapes this theatrical collage. Their new collaboration with its greater depth and expansiveness is a vast advance over their parochial but highly praised Slanguage from the 2004 Humana Festival. As in that piece, Mildred Ruiz's gutsy bluesy singing is a knockout.
On Paul Owen's simple set -- four chairs and two tables used in various configurations -- the actors create episodes about New Orleans voodoo queen Marie Laveau, musings about being black, homelessness, prison populations and bodies along with Mardi Gras costumes and beads floating in the water after Katrina, houses washed away, the lingering smell in the aftermath, well-meaning and clueless tourists, and greedy speculators looking to make a buck from the misery.
"Whether you like it or not, there's a Katrina brewing in your neighborhood," warns one actor. A stinging vignette about gun sales promotions is cleverly caustic as is one about "the original boys in the hood." (meaning a white sheet). There's also a marvelous ramble about people and groups that hate each other. It demonstrates the looniness of the whole thing by noting toward the end that pygmies hate tall people.
Another potent mini-drama focuses on an American female soldier in Iraq whose daughter, mother, and father drowned back home when Katrina broke through the levees. Heavy with grief, she nevertheless carries out orders to shoot and kill an Iraqi insurgent and the daughter he is holding.
In a telling swipe at nonsensical religious beliefs we're treated to a supposed students' harebrained classroom research paper about God creating all things, including prisons and torture. God is an American, he concludes.
Presiding over a mock funeral, a minister announces, "We have come to bury America, not to praise her." That America, he says, is the one that allows its people to be without health insurance and is bloated with corporate, political, and individual greed and corruption.
Wiping the slate clean and starting over without "the Three Stooges -- Uncle Ben, Uncle Tom and Uncle Sam -- "we're going to make this country a village": America reborn as Ameriville with liberty and justice for all.
