To summarize “In the Red and Brown Water” is pretty simple,
although the conclusion is still questionable. Oya, a young track star in the Louisiana
Bayou, is excelling in her sport. Elegba, a young boy soon to become a man, is
having dreams of Oya floating out in the water with blood on her legs as she
cups her right ear. Mama Moja, Oya’s mother, is ill, but seeking to keep her
daughter on the right path. Shango and Ogun are after Oya’s heart.
Elegba foreshadows the story with his dream as he tells Mama
Moja about it. Oya, a wonderful track runner, turns down a full-ride to state
college to watch her ill mother. Her mother dies soon after. Shango moves to
comfort her, although his intentions seem solely sexual. It becomes clear they
don’t click as a couple though, and soon after Shango leaves Oya alone again as
he leaves to join the military. Ogun steps into the picture, overcoming his
stuttering to tell Oya how he feels and he moves in with her.
By the second act, it is seen that Oya isn’t entirely
satisfied with Ogun. She’s sitting outside late at night, her mind seeming
distant. Shango returns from the military and Oya lets him back in. Ogun steps
out. Elegba has grown up, age 16, and is now a father who is also sneaking his
baby into Oya’s home. Aunt Elugua, who I’m not entirely sure is a blood
relative, is watching over Oya from afar now as well. Oy’a life just seems to
be a bad decision after another. Oya inevitably finds out that Shun, another
girl in the area who proves territorial of Shango, is pregnant with Shango’s
baby. Oya cuts off her right ear, the one Shango would always caress, and gives
it to Shango to remember her by.
There is a lot left out in the summary, too many details to
include. The story itself is a downward spiral to living hell for Oya whose
only flaw was caring too much, it seemed. Caring for her mother kept her away
from her dreams, caring for Shango and her pleasure kept her blind from how she
really felt about him, caring for Ogun puts her in an unfulfilling
relationship, and caring for Elegba is just all kinds of weird (between his
visions, theft, baby, and later discovered homosexuality which alarms Oya).
This is ultimately the most striking factor about Oya. She keeps putting others
before herself and always seems to end up short. Everyone else, save for her
mother, was in it for themselves and they prospered as far as the audience can
tell. The college who was offering Oya a scholarship finds a better runner,
Shango becomes a father after his military service (we assume), Ogun is
employed and making a living, Elegba has his baby to take care of and some sort
of relationship taking off.
I think what compelled me the most - rather repelled - was
all of the mature language. To put it gently, when you act according to a stereotype,
people are going to associate you with that stereotype. The language in total
reminded me very much of a black ghetto where the “black vernacular” is most
popular. All the same, I’ve no idea what the people in the bayou speak like, so
it could just be that. In any case, the language was…I don’t even know, that’s
all I could really take from it though. While it does serve a purpose in
establishing an atmosphere and characters (their education and morals in some
cases) it was used in what I took as excess. This might have been the typical
cursing density of a conversation though. Another striking scene in the drama
was the candy store owner, O Li Roon, told Elegba to get his black behind “over
here” so he could get the candy Elegba stole back. Putting aside the fact that
the white man left his candy shop unlocked and unattended, shedding some satire
on himself as well, there was this moment when all of the black people on stage
were offended when Elegba was called out on being black, as if to discriminate.
O Li Roon puts it as such a matter of fact in stating Elegba is black and that’s
all there is to it. I think it highlights how oversensitive people can be about
race; it’s just a color in the end.
I wasn’t happy with the stage directions being called out by
the actors. If I had to hear how Shango caressed Oya’s ear one more time I might
have had to leave the theater. I find that distracting in a performance,
especially when I have a playbill to check names, and they use character names
in dialogue. The emotion tags, like a character sulking as he or she leaves,
can probably be acted out and exaggerated. I don’t really care to know that
Elegba when out the way he came or some other way. The actions saying it also
breaks the atmosphere their acting works to create, and because of that I didn’t
get a smooth flow receiving this act. However, everything else was wonderful to
experience. The acting was brilliant, the choreography was especially
entertaining, and the music really helped to set the pace and tone. When interruptions
were at minimum, you could find yourself immersed in the environment easily.
The first college theater show I saw was Shakespeare’s “Comedy
of Errors” which used no music and even less stage props and designs. Their
costumes were pretty cool; they Globe environment and focus was there. This was
different in “In the Red and Brown Water” though, where most characters are
wearing white and it didn’t make too much sense. This was my first at state
college though, and it’s encouraging to see such young talent do so well. A lot
of hard work goes into preparing a performance, and the actors did a phenomenal
job.
