Theatre in Review: The Potluck (Soho Rep/INTAR at Peter Jay Sharp Theatre)

	Andrew R. Butler. Photo: Maria Baranova

The Potluck is a musical about a playwright trying to write a musical. If that's not incestuous enough for you, consider this: Cesar Alvarez's protagonist, named Cesar, has been commissioned to create a show about an ugly historical incident, set in Greensboro, North Carolina in 1979, involving young Communist organizers murdered by the Ku Klux Klan. In real life, Alvarez's parents were Communist organizers, and, in 1979, five of their friends were murdered by the Klan. The mother of the fictional Cesar made a documentary film about the incident titled Red November, Black November. Alvarez's mother made a documentary titled...need I say it?

Before you enter this hall of mirrors, a note of caution: The Potluck draws a striking, and not entirely flattering, contrast between two generations. Cesar, who identifies as queer and nonbinary, despite having a female partner and three children, feels burdened by their tenuous connection to the Greensboro massacre, not least because they are named after two of the victims. ("I have survivor's guilt," they insist. "You weren't born yet," somebody skeptically notes.) And growing up with Marxist parents who treated queerness as a petit-bourgeois distraction has left Cesar with some scars. (Although one shares their parent's perplexity: When asked about their seemingly complicated personal life, Cesar snaps, "That's a different musical." I'm not so sure about that. Understanding the contours of their self-definition could only illuminate their situation.)

The Potluck spends two-and-a-half hours worrying about this state of affairs, and, more than once, it almost coalesces into a musical with something original to say. Thanks to Stefania Bulbarella's projection design, we get a horrifying seven-minute clip of the Greensboro incident -- sensitive audience members are invited to step out into the lobby for the duration -- plus newspaper clippings revealing its distorted press coverage and touching photos of the victims. Three of Alvarez's songs land to stunning effect: Andrew R. Butler, best known for playing a bizarre music-industry hanger-on in Stereophonic, delivers "The Ballad of the Greensboro Five," a folk tune so stirring you'll swear Woody Guthrie wrote it. The Broadway veteran Barbara Walsh, playing Cesar's mother, makes a quietly incandescent thing of "The Myth," gently reminding Cesar that life resists simple solutions. Ruben Flores, as Cesar's father, delivers the understated heartbreaker, "Mandela," in which he imagines telling his murdered best friend about the changes that have upended the world since that dreadful day in 1979.

Also, the show's sense of humor has a way of sneaking up on one, for example, when Cesar's mother drops a cheery little voicemail about garden improvements, casually adding, of William Faulkner's Light in August and Toni Morrison's Paradise, "how deeply they explored the hatred of women. Seeing the feminine as putrid and toxic. And how that is so inextricably bound up with racism in the American experience." With parents making small talk like that, one sees how Cesar may have spent their young years on the defensive.

But The Potluck remains stuck in neutral in large part because its central conflict isn't a fair fight. Even if (like me) you think Communism is a terrible idea, Cesar's parents are nevertheless charismatic in their political engagement. Whatever their flaws -- and, really, we hear very little about how they treated Cesar -- they were dedicated, at no small cost, to ending poverty and racism. Cesar mostly frets (admittedly often amusingly) about their career, is mildly ashamed that they always preferred music-making to politics, and still smarts over their parents' unsupportive approach to gender issues. One generation wants to change the world. The other is focused on self-expression and self-care.

Cesar's problems are real, to be sure, but, seen in the light of their family's history, they seem vanishingly small, a problem that neither Sarah Benson's staging nor Anthony Alfaro's somewhat tentative performance can alleviate. (At the performance I attended, the actor's comic timing felt off, keeping some of the best lines from landing.) But the stage is filled with talented musician/actors, especially Sammy Figueroa, who plays a mean set of bongos, and Jessica Lurie, formidable with any reed instrument. And the show is at its most touching when resurrecting the members of the Greensboro Five, including Butler, Jacob Brandt, Zack Segel, Gian Perez, and Dionne McClain-Freeney, to ruefully relitigate that terrible day and muse on its consequences.

Also, hang on for the stunning reveal, courtesy of set designer (and "spiritual advisor") Emily Owen, of an abstract expressionist mural that wraps the stage. Mextly Couzin contributes some kicky black-light effects as part of her fluid design. Qween Jean's costumes are most notable when it comes to Cesar's feminine-forward ensembles, but, as always, her eye for character is acute. Eamon Goodman's sound design is clear, maintaining an admirable balance between the book scenes and musical numbers, even when the orchestra is parading around the auditorium.

The musical's title refers to the climactic event, which brings together past and present, living and dead, and those with differing points of view for a moment of grace. It's a lovely idea but one that doesn't feel fully earned. "Solidarity is just another kind of queerness," we are told. But is it really? Or, in making a broad stab at inclusion, is Alvarez merely stretching the word's definition to the point of meaninglessness? The playwright/composer tries to build a warm, feel-good entertainment on a foundation of horror. But maybe we should remember the horror for what it was. --David Barbour