Theatre in Review: the ripple, the wave that carried me home (Playwrights Horizons) Water is the ruling metaphor in Christina Anderson's play, and I'm afraid she wades in too deeply, sometimes ending up in over her head. A compelling family drama lurks inside the ripple, the wave that carried me home, but it cries out for fuller expression. The script is filled with funny, telling things, and it arrives at a touching conclusion. Yet it keeps backing away from the conflicts that provide its power. It keeps losing the plot. Janice, a college administrator living in Ohio with her husband and children, is called home to Kansas for a memorial event, and she's not at all happy about it. A local swimming pool is to be renamed for her late father, Edwin, but the idea of a return brings up unwanted memories. A longtime spiritual exile, Janice has kept her family at arm's length, communicating with weekly phone calls known as the "Sunday polites." Most of the play's action involves her delaying a decision as flashbacks explicate (more or less) her seeming paralysis. In the play, water is the source of life and family complications: The town has three pools, only one of which is for Black citizens. When it closes, Edwin and Helen (Janice's mother) mobilize to get it reopened; meanwhile, Helen, who sees swimming as a necessary part of an accomplished person's education, takes Janice to a pool in a nearby town for lessons. This plan comes to a disheartening halt one morning, when Helen and Janice are denied entry. (It seems that Helen's friend has been sneaking them in before regular hours; this is another racially restricted venue.) On the way home, the police stop them; Helen, ordering Janice to stay in the car, meets with the cops. A few minutes later, she returns, looking resigned, buttoning her blouse. The event will never be discussed. This scene, searingly handled by Christina Lucas-Perry (as Helen) and director Tiffany Nichole Greene, drives a wedge between Janice and her parents. A later confrontation between Janice, out of control with anger, and Edwin, ending in a furious slap, deepens the breach, ensuring it will never be fully healed. But Anderson tries to expand the argument in ways that don't always pay off. Eight-year-old Helen feels exploited when asked to speak at a memorial service for three boys who died in a nearby lake (another water-related incident), but this is one of many points brought up and quickly dropped. Janice feels that Edwin gets too much credit -- the pool is getting named after him -- when Helen does most of the work. But we see Edwin and Helen collaborating fruitfully, and Helen, strangely absent for long stretches, never seems to feel she dwells in her husband's shadow. Janice doesn't appreciate Edwin and Helen's commitments, which she sees as Sisyphean exercises that leave her feeling alienated. "Why can't you face the fact that you will never win?" she asks her father, accusingly. But he does win, slowly and painstakingly; the pool is reopened thanks to a creative solution found by Helen. And, by inference, they bring other improvements to their community. In some ways, the ripple, the wave that carried me home recalls The Potluck, recently produced by Soho Rep, another drama about an adult child feeling ambivalent about their parents' political activism. Anderson's play suffers from the same issues: Too much of it is conveyed through monologues, reducing many scenes to sketchy illustrations. Anderson's play takes forever to get going, starting with a lengthy exposition, not all of it relevant. As in The Potluck, the parents are more compelling than their offspring, who come off as passive and excessively aggrieved. The play would benefit hugely from a scene in which one of the older characters calls out Janice for her entitlement and judgmental attitude. These qualities make Janice more unsympathetic than the playwright intends, despite Alana Raquel Bowers' best efforts. In contrast, Lucas-Perry and Biko Eisen-Martin are so charismatic and engaging as Helen and Edwin that one wants to spend more time with them. You can't spend too much time with Marinda Anderson, delightful in two roles. As Young Chipper Ambitious Black Woman, one of those cheerful bulldozers who sit on nearly every civic or club committee, she is hilariously relentless in working to secure Janice's attendance at Edwin's memorial. She also makes memorable appearances as Janice's "fun" Aunt Gayle, first seen as a free spirit with a knack for farm work, and, years later, an aging widow, plopped down in front of the TV, guzzling Merlot and watching the Rodney King case on Court TV trial with a jaundiced eye. ("This cable bill cuts into my wine budget, but it's worth it.") Lawrence E. Moten III's faintly mysterious set design is, I think, meant to represent the cracked, algae-covered surface of a disused swimming pool. It's an interesting idea, but, as realized, it is heavy and dark, challenging lighting designer Lap Chi Chu to maintain an acceptable level of lumens onstage. Rodrigo Munoz's costumes accurately parse the play's shifting time frame, delivering period-perfect styles for each scene. Earon Chew Nealey's hair and wig designs complete each look. Christopher Darbassie's sound design delivers a solid set of effects. There's a lot to like about the ripple, the wave that carried me home, including a perceptive account of race issues in the Midwest; wait for Edwin's account of the time he and his boyhood friends crashed one of the white pools as a prank, only to see it drained for "sanitization" purposes. A let's-get-real conversation between Janice and Young Chipper Ambitious Black Woman about being "the only one" at their respective workplaces also reveals volumes. But the play feels like two or three scenes are missing, and they might be the really good ones. At only ninety minutes, it would be greatly improved if Anderson gave Edwin and Helen the chance to speak for themselves.--David Barbour 
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