Review Preview: Stick Fly

I know it's been running for two weeks, but I just saw it this weekend. So here's my draft of the review for "Stick Fly" at McCarter.

Theater review
If you want to go:
What: “Stick Fly”
When: through Oct. 14
Where: Berlind Theatre, McCarter Theatre Center, 91 University Place, Princeton
How much: $15 to $49
Info: (609) 258-2787; www.mccarter.org

By WILLIAM WESTHOVEN
Staff Writer
Dysfunctional families are part of the American fabric. Race, wealth and geography filter none of our capacity to drive our parents, partners, siblings and children crazy.
Fortunately, we also have the makeup to laugh at ourselves, at our worst, which is why it’s so much fun to laugh at “Stick Fly,” Lydia Diamond’s gem of a story that kicks off the 2007-08 season at Princeton University’s McCarter Theatre Center.
“Stick Fly,” though, transcends comedy as it explores serious racial issues and some dark corners of familial relationships in one of the most original settings you could ask for—an elite “colony” of affluent black families on haughty Martha’s Vineyard.
Diamond, one of the more promising new theatrical voices to emerge in the 21st century, earns valuable bonus points by delivering such a full-bodied story through the most routine of narrative styles—the soap opera.
The LeVay family is one of many privileged black families on Martha’s Vineyard whose lineage traces back to the 18th century. Patriarch Joseph (John Wesley), a celebrated neurosurgeon, added his hard-earned wealth to the old money and earned the right to rule his clan. We catch up with the family as sons Flip (Javon Jackson) and Kent (Kevin T. Carroll) have both arrived for a summer visit with their significant others. Flip, a confident, handsome plastic surgeon, has brought his new girlfriend, Kimber (Monette McGrath), a self-described “straight-up WASP.”
Sensitive little brother Kent, a serial student, turns up with his fiancée, Taylor (Michole Briana White), and the galleys for his new novel. Joseph sees the book as another excuse to avoid real work and the tension convention gets under way.
Father and sons break a sweat with some round-robin verbal sparring, but the women are far more interesting. Turns out that Taylor is the daughter of a Pulitzer Prize-winning black cultural anthropologist whose books have included chapters about the LeVays. They’re less impressed to learn that Taylor was the product of the doctor’s first family, long since traded in for a new model.
Then there’s Kimber, a blonde beauty who is much more than easy on the eyes. She’s taken liberal guilt to a new level, writing dissertations on black culture and working with inner-city children. She even gains the reluctant admiration of Cheryl (Julia Pace Mitchell), the brainy daughter of the family maid, who is keeping house while her mom is sick.
“You’re a princess, but you’re tough,” Cheryl says, perhaps distracted by her own family affair—mom’s just spilled the beans about her real father.
Kimber also makes friends with Taylor, despite an ugly confrontation in which Taylor attacks Kimber’s credibility. “Kimmy here goes slumming for five minutes and knows all about it,” is one of her more printable comments.
Trouble is, as several people observe, Taylor’s crazy, but she usually has a point. “We (sleep together) and pretend people don’t hate us for it,” Kimber tells Flip.
“We (sleep together) and get off on that people hate us for it,” Flip counters.
And what about Mom? Seems she and Joseph are fighting; we’ll learn more about that in the second act, which explodes like a soap at the end of sweeps.
Two acts and one intermission last more than 2 ½ hours, but the pace is lively. The action takes place in the impressive LeVay home, complete with balcony views of a lighthouse and full moon. Felix E Cochren’s set is a dream home most us of could at best hope to time-share. Lighting designer Victor En Yu Tan brushes director Shirley Jo Finney’s set changes with sunrises, sunsets and storms that indicate passing time.
There’s little room left to praise the cast, which is outstanding, but it’s worth pointing out that the women get the best of, and from, the Diamond’s delicious lines. She may not yet be the next great voice of black American theater, but “Stick Fly” is enough fun to make you ask her for more.