“Like the Wind…” (AC/BP#5)

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.