theater
Uncle Tom’s Truth
Slaves take back history in UO’s I Ain’t Yo’ Uncle
“Y
PHOTO BY ARIEL OGDEN
ou can’t change history!” cries abolitionist author Harriet Beecher Stowe. with deep earnestness, right down to her smile and stilted “doll walk.” And Tom (Hershell
And with a quick, knowing smile, Tom replies: “No, but you can change who Norwood) maintains an abiding sense of responsibility toward Stowe’s original novel,
writes it.”
adding introspection and complexity.
This is the crux of University Theatre’s
Dramaturge Rachel Foran’s well-written notes
uproarious production of Robert Alexander’s I Ain’t
suggest
that Stowe was less responsible for the
Thomas Varga (left), Lauren Reifer and
Yo’ Uncle. The play’s characters, culled from the
harmful
racial
stereotypes than were the unauthorized
Hershell Norwood in I Aint Yo’ Uncle
sometimes-celebrated Uncle Tom’s Cabin, proceed
Tom Shows, in which Uncle Tom became an “Uncle
to call out Stowe for the enduring, damaging
Tom”; based loosely on the novel, these wildly
stereotypes she helped create. Determined to
popular touring productions glossed over the evils of
rewrite their own stories in the wake of the Rodney
slavery in favor of spotlighting the goofy antics of
King beating, they use dance, rap, gospel and black
Tom and Topsy.
power to upend the traditional narrative of slavery.
Now Topsy’s back, and she’s not happy.
Alexander’s play makes use of everything from
Emerging with utmost relevance for today’s
melodrama to Mr. T references in an attempt to
society, Topsy (Lauren Reifer) remains stubbornly
inspire the audience to think, cringe and laugh. The
unrepentant. Depicted as a mischievous imp without
script is funny, though it doesn’t pull any punches
parents or Christian faith, she embodies Stowe’s
when it comes to the atrocities of the antebellum
criticism of the corrupt system of slavery and what
South. Segments of I Ain’t Yo’ Uncle are diffi cult
it produced. In I Ain’t Yo’ Uncle, Topsy moves
to watch, and theater traditionalists may not
seamlessly into the 21st century wearing a Nicki
appreciate the production’s erratic, edgy circus of
Minaj wig, ending the play on an unapologetic note,
thought and emotion. But if the truth is messy, it’s
full of anger and energy.
still worth hearing.
LaDonna L. Forsgren’s direction is similarly
Not satisfi ed to simply run away, George Harris
unapologetic. Forsgren uses the genre of melodrama
(Nathan Urbach) returns with a black beret and a
to mock itself, mingling humor with rape and murder,
gun to take into his own hands the injustices of
and ultimately creating an evening as entertaining as
slavery. Naomi Wright’s Eliza, empowered by the
it is thought provoking. — Anna Grace
magnitude of her own epic drama, would prefer
I Ain’t Yo’ Uncle: The New Jack Revisionist Uncle Tom’s Cabin runs
that her husband drop the gun, come home and
through June 2 at the UO’s Hope Theatre; a “talkback” with playwright
stop trying to hone in on her scenes. As little Eva
Robert Alexander will follow the Thursday, May 31, performance; ticket@
uoregon.edu or 346-4363.
St. Claire, Sarah Ruggles approaches caricature
Lucky in Love
Odd couples find romance
in Almost, Maine
L
ike the fi lms of Christopher Guest (especially Waiting
for Guffman) and the Prairie Home broadcasts of
Garrison Keillor, John Cariani’s Almost, Maine
— now at the Very Little Theatre — sports a veneer of
pleasantly skewed gentility. The play’s sentimental surfaces
appear ready-made for the fuzzy liberalism that hums like a
bumble across the honeyed airwaves of NPR. If, however,
Cariani’s romantic comedy proves affable and easy on the
senses, it would be a mistake to dismiss it as just another
brindled, birchy bit of geriatric self-congratulations. As the
kids say on Facebook: It’s complicated.
Directed by VLT vet Michael P. Watkins, Almost, Maine
indeed goes down easy. The play is broken up into a series of
interconnected skits, each one as punchy and self-contained
as a short story. Set in a rural hamlet that looks a lot like
Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio (“We never got
around to getting organized,” one townie explains, “so
we’re just Almost”), most of the scenes involve a moment
of unexpected poignancy between two sharply sketched
characters. In Almost, love is in the air.
In one bit, a woman mourning her divorce is suddenly
kissed by the stranger upon whose property she wants to
pitch a tent; in another passage, a pair of co-workers — a
man and a virginal tomboy — do an awkward waltz around
their unexplored mutual attraction; and in perhaps the play’s
fi nest moment, a couple of blue-collar dudes complaining
about their luck with women slowly realize they are falling,
literally, in love.
Almost, Maine transcends the treacly stuff of rom-
com cliché by skipping the foreplay (attraction, obstacle,
interruption, rekindling, consummation) and cutting right
to the chase: the irrational romp of desire. Each successive
vignette, like a fl ight of fancy, builds on the optimistic idea
of the soul mate — the faith that, given enough time and
patience, each of us eventually will encounter her/his perfect
match. The larkish comedy in Cariani’s conceit derives from
the fact that we might not immediately recognize that perfect
match when it arrives, or it might have been right in front of
our face all along.
David Sherman’s nicely uncomplicated set (a bench, a
porch, a fence) is full of wide-open spaces, and Watkins’
direction uses the big stage to good effect: The paired players
interact with the vastness in such a way that they are by
turns diminished or magnifi ed, according to the mood and
rhythms of the action (for instance, a lonely guy sitting on a
bench contemplating a snowball looks to be swallowed by
the universe itself). And Watkins has assembled an attractive
cast of comic actors that includes Cody Mendonca, Sean
Dugan, Sophie Schmidt, Holly Stanley, Joseph Tanner Paul,
Sarah Etherton and Jay Hash; they provide just the right
amount of sweetness and spark to fi ll this modest but wise
play with light. Almost, Maine isn’t looking to change the
world, just to remind us what makes the world go ‘round.
— Rick Levin
Almost, Maine plays through June 9 at the Very Little Theatre; TheVLT.com
or 344-7751.
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