Written by: Tarell Alvin McCraney
Showing: Steppenwolf’s Upstairs Theatre, 1650 N. Halsted
Through: May 23
Tickets: $20-$70
Contact: (312) 335-1650 or steppenwolf.org
Elegiac writer Tarell Alvin McCraney’s plays “In the Red and Brown Water” and duo “The Brothers Size/Marcus; or the Secret of Sweet,” currently running in repertory at Steppenwolf, are dream-laden wonders, drenched in both emotional and physical nature.
Flowing like the aqua references that inspire him, McCraney’s tales tell the twisted histories of the residents of a fragrant New Orleans bayou. Anchored by the gasping nighttime reveries of the young, bisexual Elegba (in “In the Red and Brown Water”) and eventually by his misunderstood, queer son Marcus (in “Marcus”), we witness the dashed hopes, criminal desperation and sexual longings of multiple generations of a complicated small town’s residents. In the thrall of a series of masculine but critically wavering men, McCraney’s prime characters eventually find their strength in either bittersweet truth or brutal, blood shedding fantasy.
Anchored by Tina Landau’s chorale style direction, McCraney’s characters linger in your psyche, becoming clearer in thought and deed as your mind slowly reacquaints yourself with them in the immediate days that follow.
Of course, the superb cast has a firm grasp on your brainwaves as well. As Ogun Size, primary recipient of Marcus’ rattled nightscapes, K. Todd Freeman beguiles with insidious skill. Rodrick Covington brings an easy sexuality and superbly layered realities to both of his macho and unattainable men. Ora Jones is heartbreaking and emotionally crystalline as a variety of mothers on opposite sides of the acceptance spectrum while Jacqueline Williams, once again, proves herself to be a Chicago treasure and an imaginable reason that Otis Redding would never have to try a little tenderness again. It’s all there in Williams’ tawny eyes.
