If Arthur Miller had written a play about auto workers facing the personal and professional consequences of a possible plant closure, it might have been Skeleton Crew, which is about the highest praise I can bestow upon Dominique Morisseau’s powerful blue-collar drama, now making a breathtakingly designed, directed, and performed Geffen Playhouse debut.

 Like many a Miller protagonist before her, Skeleton Crew’s 50something Faye (Caroline Stefanie Clay) has devoted her life, or at least the last twenty-nine years of it, to the company, in her case to the assembly line of a Detroit stamping plant, a job that now has her working alongside the street-smart, decades-younger Dez (Amari Cheatom), who dreams of one day owning his own car repair shop, and single-mom-to-be Shanita (Kelly McCreary), so proud of “building something important” at the plant that she wouldn’t even consider quitting, even for the managerial job she’s been offered at a local copy shop.

Plant foreman Reggie (DB Woodside), caught between upper management and the workers he supervises, entreats UAW rep Faye to keep the news of the plant’s likely impending demise a secret from her fellow workers until he has come up with a compromise solution, and because Reggie, Faye, and their respective mothers go back decades, Faye agrees to wait and see.

 As the lesbian cancer survivor fights to keep a roof over her head however much against the rules, and Dez attempts to woo a frustratingly noncommittal Shanita, and Reggie does his best to maintain order amongst his increasingly agitated workers, playwright Morisseau draws us into the lives of characters no longer the strangers we first met (and as college educated L.A. theatergoers are likely never to meet) but touchingly real, multidimensional human beings in whose lives we become invested while remaining glued to the edge of our seats as stakes become higher and livelihoods are placed on the line.

 Perhaps even more relevant today than during the 2008 recession during which it is set, Skeleton Crew examines disillusionment with the American Dream much as Miller’s Death Of A Salesman did seven decades ago, and just as Willy Loman found himself superfluous after a lifetime’s devotion to the job, Skeleton Crew’s Faye is forced to confront the reality that she might get a pink slip a year too soon. (“Retirement package be real different for twenty-nine years versus thirty,” she tells Reggie.)

Morisseau’s African-American characters may be of a different race than those lionized by Arthur Miller, but as loyalties are tested, jobs are pitted against friendships, and friendships are pitted against family commitments, Faye and her coworkers are no less cogs in the machine than Miller’s Willy.

Making an auspicious Geffen Playhouse debut, director Patricia McGregor helms a couldn’t-be-better cast (educated at drama schools as prestigious as Juilliard and Yale) who vanish inside the skins of Skeleton Crew’s blue-collar heroes.

 Clay’s gut-wrenching force-of-nature performance as Faye is matched by Woodside’s towering work as Reggie,  with Cheatom and McCreary providing compelling support while igniting considerable romantic, sexual chemistry along the way.

 If nothing else, Skeleton Crew’s L.A. debut will be remembered as one of the year’s most spectacular production designs, scenic designer Rachel Myers giving us a dilapidated break room down to the minutest detail as wheel rims roll down an overhead assembly line accompanied by Everett Elton Bradman’s stunning factory-noise-as-music sound design and Pablo Santiago’s dramatic, increasingly frenzied lighting as tempers flair to incendiary heights, with Emilio Sosa scoring his own design points for his spot-on costumes.

 Ross Jackson is production stage manager and Jade Cagalawan is assistant stage manager. Casting is by Phyllis Schuringa, CSA.

Sparked with moments of raw humor, despair, anger, and hope, Skeleton Crew will have you rooting for each and every one of its characters to come out a winner. Get ready to stand up and cheer.

Geffen Playhouse, 10886 Le Conte Ave., Westwood.
www.geffenplayhouse.com

–Steven Stanley
June 14, 2018
Photos: Chris Whittaker

Tags: Dominique Morisseau, Geffen Playhouse, Los Angeles Theater Review