Theatre in Review: America, Who Hurt You? (National Black Theatre/Theatre for a New Audience)Talk about tall orders: In her new solo show, Sarah Jones wants to do nothing less than heal our fractured, fractious republic, which she correctly views as locked in a perpetual culture-war cycle even as it slides into fascism and kakistocracy. She aims to put out collective consciousness on the couch, forcing it to confront its buried pain and litany of sins. Well, why not? Somebody has to try. But I'm not sure that America, Who Hurt You?, which has its charms, will seal the deal. Based on the headlines assaulting us daily, time for talk therapy is running out. Jones, a performer of enormous technical gifts, who comes our way about as frequently as Halley's Comet, says the show began with a podcast "around the election in 2024 when we thought perhaps sanity might prevail." A TED Talk veteran, she used the format to chat up a variety of "changemakers" in search of a collective way forward. Ultimately, she concluded that we all need to reach out beyond our tribes and listen to each other again. Well, it's a lovely thought. The stage show, the next step in Jones' National Reconciliation Plan, is repeatedly described as a work in progress, which may explain its tentative nature. Across the evening, she attacks our social divisions in different ways, with varying degrees of success. First, she addresses us directly, laying out her plan despite frequent interruptions from her wildly mixed extended family and friends. They include the elderly Lorraine, who, having escaped the Holocaust, doesn't want to hear young people nattering on about "trauma;" Nereida, a Latina, who notes, "At this point I'm relying on my own affirmations just to get through the day. I mean, en serio, like I just try to say the two little words that always make me feel better: Bad Bunny;" and Rashid, who insists, "I ain't playing no trauma Olympics," and, scanning the audience, notes, skeptically, "It's a little light in here tonight." They and several others make for good company, as does the "proud, Christian, and white" Hank, who, turning on Jones, wants to know what is so inclusive about a "one-woman show." Jones channels each of them with astonishing facility, skillfully doling out personas like a blackjack dealer. But the writing in these scenes, however amusing, is strangely unfocused. The characters, some of them leftovers from their previous pieces, come and go without engaging in meaningful dialogue, and their material often feels warmed-over. Combined with video projections of Jones with Meryl Streep (an early supporter), a UNICEF team, and the Obamas, the opening passage seems mostly designed to remind us of her past accomplishments. The script's centerpiece features Britain, presented as a crisp, competent professional, psychologically treating America, rendered as a narcissistic teenage girl more interested in makeup than world problems. It's a comic setup that never really pays off, relying on material worked to death by late-night television comics. (Preening, America insists proudly, "My regular doctor constantly gives me cognitive tests, which I ace every time.") America's therapy involves trotting out such well-worked-over historical crimes such as Columbus' treatment of Native Americans and the arrival of slaves in 1619, as well as such modern follies as rampant tariffs and the so-called Board of Peace. Jones has little new to say about any of them; indeed, these sequences feel like rough drafts for a sharper, funnier sketch to come. The evening improves markedly when America, in a drug-induced state, taps into a vein of repressed memories focusing on a Mount Rushmore of the oppressed: Louise, a Black slave used by her owner as a brood mare; Juan Carlos, a Mexican-American World War I veteran; Moira, an Irish-American immigrant who toiled in a grim factory so her children wouldn't have to; Jeannie, a twentieth-century Southerner whose secretarial job at a newspaper was, for all its limitations, a stab at personal freedom; and Marcus, who, arrested by the LAPD and imprisoned, becomes estranged from his brother, a rising executive. Most touching is middle-aged Shizuko, part of the Nisei generation, who cares for his demented mother and dreams wistfully of the love he will never share with another man. Here, Jones exercises her considerable gifts, aided by video designer Stefania Bulbarella, who renders the star's face in massive close-up, lovingly grazed by Jiyoun Chang's chiaroscuro lighting. (Palmer Hefferan's sound design is also helpful.) Jones' healing instincts extend to the finale, when she engages us in a soothing breathing exercise; as always, her goodwill and engaging presence are easy to appreciate. But I saw America, Who Hurt You? on a day when every hour disgorged an alarming new headline about war in the Middle East, unseemly Congressional wrangling, threats to free speech, a wobbling economy, and tussling over the Kennedy Center, part of the Presidential effort to make the District of Columbia look like Liberace's living room. All of which makes Jones' gentle, often witty, and totally sincere exercise seem oddly beside the point. It was hard to miss a certain restiveness in the theatre at the performance I attended, even if the audience was clearly broadly in sympathy with her ideas. Perhaps another director might have guided Jones to a more forceful performance; Eric Ting seemingly gives her free rein when another editorial eye might have served her better. America, Who Hurt You? is both diverting and unsatisfying, a call to action that lacks the passion that this moment arguably requires. The world moves very, very fast these days. Jones' observations might have landed with more force a couple of seasons ago. Right now, they feel like too little, too late. --David Barbour 
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