Play Critique:
Motown
During this past weekend, I saw the show Motown by Charles Randolph-Wright at the Lunt-Fontanne theatre. It was a very good show, “flashbacking” through the life of Berry Gordy, the man who made Motown, and the effect it had on African American rights. It opened from the beginning of Berry’s career, introducing the audience to his character and his ambitions-- sadly, we missed this part because of traffic in the city, but the content of the twenty minutes we missed can be implied. The show centered around the music Motown created and it’s nostalgia as we watched the underdog record label have it’s up and downs throughout time. Motown inadvertently helped to get rid of segregation as their music became popular, and the show highlights how influential Motown was as the company survives through Martin Luther King’s death and the following riots as well as the departure of huge artists from the company such as Michael Jackson and Diana Ross, herself. The main conflicts Motown seemed to have were threats to it’s existence by competition, and the rocky relationship of Berry Gordy and Diana Ross. The show closes with a forlorn Berry Gordy being comforted at Motown’s 25th anniversary by his “family” of clients that he helped climb the rungs of fame through music. Knowing my history of Motown music, I know that Berry does sell Motown, but the musical end before it tells us if he does or not.
Leading characters Brandon Victor Dixon (Berry Gordon) and Krystal Joy Brown (Diana Ross) were both very talented and played their characters to a T. I didn’t recognize what I know of Diana Ross’s character when the musical was in it’s first act and she was still in the Supremes, but at her “first solo concert”, Krystal Brown let her Diana Ross-like nature shine. Inviting a couple audience members up onto the stage was perfect, and each wispy way she spoke drew me further and further into the allusion that she was actually Diana Ross. Brandon Dixon was an extremely good actor as well and always had my attention, from beginning to end. For example, during close to the final scene when Berry Gordon was sitting in his living room and talking to Smokey, the emotion Brandon displayed must of matched the emotion the original Berry Gordon had when he was faced with the inevitability of selling Motown.
Aside from the acting bit which was mostly done very well, there was only one small issue that I noticed during the show. While “Stevie Wonder” played one of his big hits on stage, his acting as a blind man seemed somewhat poorly done or awkward, and they seemed to be having a lot of problems with his microphone. It was obvious that the actor who portrayed him had no knowledge of the piano at all, and while that might gleam by the eyes of the uneducated masses, anyone who has ever even looked at the piano could tell that he was just slamming his hands down on silent keys and hoping he looked good while doing so. The response? He did not.
Aside from the “Stevie Wonder” hiccup, everything else was executed perfectly. From the somehow minimalistic but still intricate and quick moving set, the lighting and the dancing...everything went smoothly together without a single hitch to throw off the show. The most impressive part of their set was the way that they used the bare minimum in props, but still fully represented what was going on in the story. I wasn’t left confused by any action they portrayed, and when they used simple 2D wooden cut out pieces suspended by wires to represent the radio station’s front, it came across in my mind at the time as so much more. In comparison to the other play we saw while in New York, of which whose set was intricate and chock full of detail, Motown still managed to be three times more likable---it’s spoken content shined without all of the physical touches.
Overall, I’d have to say that Motown has become my new favorite show, perhaps even above Sweeney Todd or The Phantom of the Opera. I adored every single song and the history of Motown has always been of great interest to me (I’m somewhat obsessed with the early Motown time period). The effect of the show can be clearly demonstrated in this fact: I managed to remember the name Motown, and I can’t even remember the correct name of the play we saw starring Daniel Radcliffe. Motown was work of art expressed through music and motion, and overall seemed to be a favorite among myself and other members of the audience. Of course, who doesn’t love Michael Jackson and Diana Ross?!
Writing Sample:
STEEL
by Paige Moody
It was the third week of Junior year when he showed up.
He wasn’t any one particularly exciting, new people came to the High School all the time. This wasn’t the stereotypical small town where the slightest news sent everyone bubbling up in excitement, though sometimes I wish it was. I remember the first glance I took at him. In the beginning I thought he was just was just a quiet and awkward boy, not yet ready to be a man in the fray of the world. I want to say I sensed something wrong about him the second I met him, and perhaps I did, but it was all written off as him being just a tad too lanky and slightly menacing with longish brown hair that sometimes obscured the entirety of his face. In the end everything that he was came to be was forgettable to everyone else, but not to me.
Mom and I lived beyond the suburbia of the college town, away from the bustling kids and bright lights that blocked out the stars. It was more peaceful here, and peace was all my mom wanted after her divorce with my dad. The only house we had near to us was about half a block away, and somewhat of an eyesore with bits coming apart here and there; dangling shutters and peeling paint.
My mother told me once when I was eight that it was abandoned over unpaid mortgages and taxes, but I always preferred the daunting horror stories my friends used to whisper as we passed the decomposing building. The worst part of the property was probably not the house, but the backyard. It was separated from ours by a small expanse of overgrown trees and a rotten fence, but the rusted cars and carelessly tossed trash were still viewable from our back porch.
I never truly began to know Axel until the day I heard drilling coming from the house.
Night had faintly began to touch the sky, dipping it’s fingers into the once baby blue pool and turning it black and red as the sun set: corrupting it. He was there, just barely visible in the trees, shifting around a car that stood as a black mass in the shadowy shelter of the woods. I admit it frightened me at first glance, and when I stepped out onto my back porch and gazed upon that almost hellish sight I felt a hair-raising chill make it’s way up my arms. The red stain of the sky peeked through the tree line, contrasting the onyx figure in the mess of cars. Everything seemed so black that night...
I swear it was idiocy that allowed me to slip down my back porch steps and creep over to the fence. If this had been a movie I was watching, I probably would have been screaming at the heroine not to look, not to go farther, but still I went as scared as I was. I walked along the fence for awhile until I found a wide gap in the rotten wood, and slipped through.
Leaves covered the ground that protested every step I took with a betraying crunch, but I relied on the sound of the man’s drilling to camouflage my slow approach.
When I came upon him I tried to stand as blatantly as I could, but he was too busily bent over a the open hood of a rusting car to take immediate notice of me. He wasn’t so frightening up close, either, though he was obviously very tall from the way he had to hunch to fiddle with the internal pieces of the engine. I wasn’t scared anymore.
“What are you doing?”
He jumped guiltily and flung himself against the front of the car to face his intruder, eyes searching me up and down as he quickly assessed the situation and smoothed his ruffled feathers. It didn’t take long for the nervousness to drop from his grease-smudged face and for him to opt for a ‘cooler’ attitude.
“What are you doing?” He snapped, straightening himself up.
“Is this yours?” I ignored his retort, and stepped from my offensive stance in front of him to see the side of the car. I guessed that it was a car of some age simply from the chrome lining and the faint remaining traces of sky blue paint visible on the rusting steel.
“Obviously.” He sputtered and stood behind me as I inspected the carcass of a car, peering over my shoulder.
“Obviously not.” I said.
Peering through the dingy windows told me a lot about how long the car had been out there. The seats resembled benches and had remaining scraps of plush red covering, but had mostly been eaten up and torn away by the weather. Leaves and beer cans layered the “This crap has been out here since we moved here.”
“It’s not crap.”
“Oh?” I turned on him then, trying to force him to make eye contact but he averted his gaze, staring out into the trees.
He and the car definitely appeared to be a mismatch at first glance, the contrast even more evident when he stood next to it. He seemed somewhat menacing and dark, even though he had hunched his shoulders as if trying to make himself just a few inches shorter and hung his head somewhat, allowing his long dark hair to shield his face from scrutiny. Even the way he had shoved his hands into his jean pockets brought a contrast, his clothes were all a shade of grey while the car was that rusting but bright blue. Even his eyes, a frozen earthy brown that matched the shade of some of the leaves beneath our feet. But at the same time, the car and him were the same... they both seemed sad.
He never replied to me, and eventually after just a few brief moments of misdirected glaring at the ground he scooped up his tools and stalked away into the woods.
I didn’t see him again until Tuesday, although by then I’d asked enough people at school about him that I was able to put a name to him: Axel. We never had any classes together, but that was more expectable in a school of our size. It was rare when I’d even see him stalk through the hallways, head partially down and backpack on tight.
He was back in the woods around nine that night, but this time there were no sounds to arouse my attention. It was a light swinging carelessly in the dark that drew me to window sill and I watched his silhouette walk up to the car and pop the lid.
My mom closed the refrigerator door, and I turned from the kitchen window to look at her. “Do you think any of the cars could work?”
“Hm? What cars?”
“The ones next door.”
“Oooh.” She pondered the thought for a moment as she bit into her banana and then followed a shake of her head with a rushed swallow. “I would be pretty surprised if any of those things worked. They’ve been sitting out there for years...” She paused, a thought crossing her mind. “Why?”
“Mm.” I let her information sink in as I took another step from the window, a thousand questions that I intended to find answers for running through my mind. “No reason really....” The air settled for moment, each of us lost in our own thoughts until I moved towards the stairs.
“I think I’m gonna go to bed.”
I tossed a lazy hand up at my mom as she called out a “good night, sweetie!” through another mouthful of banana.
I was excited to meet my newfound friend, and instead of actually going to bed I took a nap in hopes that by the time I woke up my mother would be asleep. I woke up several times that night, each time creeping downstairs to peek out the window and make sure he was still there until my mother finally went to bed and I could meet him, unquestioned.
When I finally was able to go out it was the dead of night but he was still there, hunched over the husk of a car.
I pressed my feet into a pair of beat up moccasins I wore when I didn’t feel like taking the time to tie on my converse, and slipped into a wind breaker. He didn’t say anything when I showed up this time, and I watched him in silence.
It was like this for many nights. I’d come out and stand at the side of the car as he pulled parts out of it and crawled underneath it only to slip back out covered in dirt and leaves. I’d say nothing, and he’d say nothing, and soon we developed a routine. He’d come out with his makeshift bag of tools and car parts, and then I’d come, and I’d stand in silence as he worked.
“Axel?” I spoke one night.
“Hmm?” He generally look disheveled, but when he stuck his head out from the cab of the car, I could see his hair was ridiculously full of leaves and dirt had been smudged across the cheeks of his peaceful expression. I had to look away from him to hide my guilty smile, pretending to brush the back of my pants off. “What are you going to do when you’re all done fixing the car?”
“Eh. Wanna go for a ride?” I couldn’t help looking at him with my full smile, answering in the way our eyes locked. It was all it took for his smile to mirror mine, drilled to his face as he climbed back inside the cab of the car and started to wipe down the space below the back window.
There were many nights like that night from then on with little discussions alight in the dark woods. Sometimes he’d stop working and sit at my side, leaning his back against the thick trunk of a tree while he let himself get passionate about a topic. Mostly it was music he’d go on about, tossing his hands in the air and expressing the intensity of his feelings in his soft voice. Other times he would work quietly and listen as I read him snippets of stories and poetry I was required to read for my classes, or retold events from my day. When I told him about the woes of my life, he never really responded with much, but I didn’t really mind.
There was always something left unspoken by words between us, however, whatever it was electing to be sung in the way we’d let knowing smiles lace themselves up on our lips in passing at school, or when it was night and I’d carefully wipe smudges of dirt and grease off his cheeks with my thumbs.
taking time to trace his graceful jawline before sheepishly dropping my hands. He had spent the hour pulling wet fallen foliage from inside the car and scrubbing the mildewy seats
I thought I knew him inside and out, but there was always something missing. Something I felt selfish and cruel for not noticing; the way he rarely made eye contact or sometimes chose not to speak to me the entire night. He had come out seething a few nights, fists clenched and head down, refusing to make any sound in my direction but the clanging of steel as he’d smash wrenches and pipes off the side of the car. I’d get angry with him because I didn’t understand why.
It was one of those nights when I hurt him, enraged by the fact he’d smashed one of the remaining good windows on the car. He had come into our space without a word and slammed his makeshift bag of tools right through the glass. It fell around the car like stars, reflecting the billowing trees above that blotted out the sky above.
“What is your problem?” I stormed to his side so I could strike his chest open palmed. “Why the hell would you do that?”
“Don’t talk to me.” The words came out almost robotic as he turned away from me, but I latched onto his sleeve, refusing to let him just walk away.
“Axel.
but the night he didn’t show up became the night that I truly began to know my Axel.
I came out a little bit later than the normal time we usually would meet that night. My mom had tied me up doing laundry and cleaning the bathrooms before I was able to “go to bed,” so I was running late. However, it seemed to be that I was actually early... I had arrived before he did that night. I waited for an hour sitting against the chrome grill of the car, wrapped up in my windbreaker, and when he still hadn’t come I almost left. I was confused and worried, thinking I had done something to upset him. Self-accusing questions left scars in my mind. Had I hurt his feelings? Did I do something wrong? No-- I hadn’t done anything wrong... had I? Maybe he was skipping out on me.
I didn’t leave, I got up and headed deeper into the woods. I ran until I was tired and damp. I screamed his name. I looked behind each and every tree but was awarded with no response. It had been hours since I left now and my sides ached.
This just wasn’t right.
A thousand shades of emotion were strung through me like wire, taught and painful. I felt betrayed some how, used for my solace and then abandoned....and maybe that was true.
I found him sitting against a tree. He was wearing the clothes from the day before, but I noticed his pants were torn and stained with grease like a typical mechanic. The holes in his pants seemed so much more obvious when he had his knees tucked up to his chest.
“Axel?” I asked tentatively.
It took just that small utterance to wake him, and he was standing within seconds, back against the bark and unjustifyingly terrified. His skittishness was somewhat out of character and all of my supposed premonitions from before vanished when I saw his behavior. He reminded me too much of the feral cat my mom had brought home once. I could see the same reflection in his eyes that I saw in that grey speckled cat as I had tried to coax it out from under the bed. We named her Coconut and left food out by the bed when I’d given up on trying to get her to come out, but she managed to get outside a few weeks later. I hadn’t seen her since, not until now.
His left eye was purple and swollen shut; I noticed that first even though he had ducked his head and let his hair curtain his face. The bruises up and down his arms were other ample assurances of his pain, unhidden by the short sleeved t-shirt he had also worn the day before.
“Axel...” I started, whispering as if my words could be as tough as the hand that had bruised him. He tensed in response.
“What the hell are you doing here?” The anger in his voice was forced.
“What happened to you?” My voice was quiet but unwavering, trying to pierce right through the wall he was using to keep me out.
“Why are you here?”
“Why do you have a black eye?” I shot back, but silence was demanded by the sound of a slamming screen door.
Right behind Axel and through the trees, I spotted a dank trailer. Painfully old and falling apart, it was the stereotypical ‘white trash’ abode that television shows mocked. Parts of cars littered the wooded area around the trailer, as well as bits of glass and trash that had found it’s way outside: it was like a littler version of the house neighboring mine.
Hoarse screaming shot through the woods, bouncing off of the dark trees and drowning the wispy sound of branches rubbing against one another in the wind.
“Axel, where the fuck are you?!”
We booked it.
I didn’t know exactly why we started running other than for fear, but I was sure he did. It seems so obvious to me now, just trying to remember the voice; sloppy and cruel.
We didn’t stop running from it until we landed back in the junkyard of cars where we had first met and the voice was replaced by the quiet of the morning. I sat next to him in the backseat of our car, too tired to care about the rotting seats and mildewy scent the car had taken on. Then I just held his hand until he slept, knees drawn up awkwardly in the small backseat and head lolled forward so his chin was against his chest.
I don’t know why I smiled, sitting there with a broken boy in a broken car, consequences inevitably waiting around the corner for the both of us-- though his punishment would be more dire-- but I did. I looked right out that cracked windshield into the early morning and grinned, squeezing his hands with mine that seemed too small in comparison.
He wasn’t there when I woke up. In fact, he didn’t show up for many nights after that, and I felt as if he would never return. Without him, though my life was exactly as it was before he showed up, it felt empty. I waited for him, even went looking for him a couple times, but I never found the trailer again.
Two weeks passed until he came again, but this time it was during the day.
His eye look considerably better, the purplish color it had been before nothing but a dark hue of it’s former self. I couldn’t see his arms; they were shielded from my scrupulous gaze by black sleeves, but he looked less frail, maintaining well his typical steely attitude.
When I went to him, he was standing in front of the car, arms crossed and brown eyes guarded. He hadn’t brought his tools this time.
“I can’t fix this crap.”
I didn’t know if he was talking about the car, or something else.
“Why not?” My question was tentative.
“It’s too fucked up.” He uncrossed his arms, and while never taking his eyes off me kicked his foot against one of the flat tires. “Rusted out. The elements busted it beyond repair-- even if I had a shop...”
“What if I could help? What if-”
He cut me off. “You can’t fix it. You can’t fix it if I can’t.”
We held eye contact for a long while. This wasn’t a game, wasn’t anything comparable to the small conversations we had in the dimming light of the night or anything close to the simple silent evenings we had spent in one another’s company. This was a suffocating blackness that was on it’s haunches, threatening to swallow everything that had ever been loved---taking, stealing---greed, lust, pride, envy---a sin beyond sin was threatening the quiet, wanting the happiness for it’s own.
“You knew you couldn’t fix it the first time you laid eyes on it.”
There was a pause as he lifted his hand to my face, grazing his long fingers against my soft, darkening cheeks and then a single finger over my bottom lip. Then he grimaced and dropped his hand, a fallible expression washing over his face for just a moment before it flitted away, suffocated under his iron mask.
“I know.”
