Kemp Powers’ Little Black Shadows takes an intriguing concept (the lives of teenage house slaves serving white teen masters in early-1850s Georgia), then veers off track into family dysfunction, folktales, magical realism, and a couple of weird plot twists that left me scratching my head despite the best efforts of a Grade-A cast headed by the simply sensational Giovanni Adams and Chauntae Pink.

 A striking opening sequence reveals the pampered upbringing of cotton plantation heir Daniel (Daniel Bellusci) and his twin sister Mittie (Emily Yetter), seemingly incapable even of donning their own nightwear in their side-by-side bedrooms without the aid of slaves Colis (Adams) and Toy (Pink), the latter two of whom then settle down for a night’s sleep beneath their masters’ elevated beds, but not before Colis recounts to his fellow slave (through a wall vent separating the two rooms) an encounter with a woman he believes might be the field slave mother from whom he was torn apart at birth.

 Colis and Toy’s status as house “servants” does indeed give them a far less difficult life than those of their cotton-picking counterparts, but that easier existence may soon be jeopardy should Daniel and Mittie’s Father (Mark Doerr) make good on plans to move himself, his wife (Elyse Mirto as Mother), and the twins from Georgia to Louisiana where the purchase of a sugar plantation would guarantee more lucrative profits but also mean selling off some of their Georgia slaves in order to purchase more experienced sugar-field workers.

 Unfortunately, rather than explore in depth how this move might affect Colis and Toy, playwright Powers opts to focus on flute-playing “sissy” Daniel’s relationship with his monster of a father while relegating Colis and Toy to recounting abstruse folktales.

The plot then takes a horrific, virtually unfathomable turn before a journey into magical realism has one character returning as a ghost and an inconclusive, unsatisfying denouement ends the play on a “What was that all about?” note.

 It’s a shame Powers’ play proves so perplexing because under May Andrales’s direction, both Adams and Pink do absolutely stunning work, he as a young man longing for a mother he has never met, she as a young woman whose fascination with race bears deeper examination.

 Doerr’s domineering Father, Mirto’s well-meaning but ineffectual Mother, and Yetter’s rebellious Mittie make the most of their less fleshed-out characters, and rising musical theater star Bellusci is heartbreaking as a son whose artistic talents and dreams evoke only parental disdain.

Scenic designer David M. Barber and lighting designer Elizabeth Harper set Little Black Shadows in a strikingly stark monochromatic world whose only hints of color are in Sara Ryung Clement’s period-perfect early-1850s wear.

 Particularly stunning are projection/puppet designer Hana S. Kim’s animated shadow plays depicting field slaves at work or on the auction block, images backed by sound designer Nathan A. Roberts’s evocative mix of spirituals and original music.

Kimberly Colburn is dramaturg. Nikki Hyde is stage manager.

I went into Little Black Shadows hoping for a contemporary perspective on an ugly chapter in American history and it seemed for a while that this is what I would get. If only this South Coast Repertory World Premiere had kept a more realistic focus on Colis and Toy and not veered off into the confounding and the bizarre.

South Coast Repertory, 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa.
www.scr.org

–Steven Stanley
April 15, 2016
Photos: Jordan Kubat/SCR

Tags: Kemp Powers, Los Angeles Theater Review, South Coast Repertory