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The co-founders of OnWord Theatre, from left, are marketing director Danielle Bunch, producing artistic director Marti Gobel and managing director Jamaelya Hines. (Michael Hari \/ Fade Out Media)<\/p>\nHaving marked in August one year since its founding, fledgling OnWord Theatre is winding up 2025 with its second fully staged production, the West Coast premiere of Dael Orlandersmith\u2019s one-person play \u201cBeauty\u2019s Daughter.\u201d<\/p>\n
The role of Diane, a writer in East Harlem trying to reconcile the scars of her past \u2014 largely inflicted by her mother \u2014 with the personal struggles and discoveries of the present is \u201ca big old actor sandwich\u201d for OnWord producing artistic director Marti Gobel, who founded OnWord with Danielle Bunch and Jamaelya Hines. \u201cIt\u2019s a phenomenally gritty, raw script.\u201d<\/p>\n
Orlandersmith\u2019s Obie Award-winning 1995 play calls for its actor to portray six different people, including the Diane character. The others, all constituting relationships of some sort or brief encounters in Diane\u2019s life, including an aged neighbor, a man she meets at a wedding and her own alcoholic, mean-spirited mother, Beauty.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey don\u2019t communicate with each other,\u201d Gobel said of the arc of the solo show. \u201cThese are monologues, almost like vignettes. Each one is sandwiched with spoken word poetry (also written by Orlandersmith, who began as a spoken word artist and who starred in \u201cBeauty\u2019s Daughter\u201d herself when it was first staged).<\/p>\n
OnWord\u2019s Bunch, who is directing, said \u201cThere\u2019s a throughline because it all stems from Diane\u2019s life and experiences. You learn very quickly that she\u2019s got to protect her heart and her sanity, and at the same time these are very isolated characters.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven though we have the single instrument that is Marti, they are very different people,\u201d Bunch said.<\/p>\n
This production of \u201cBeauty\u2019s Daughter\u201d marks a return to the past for Gobel. She launched her former Milwaukee company Uprooted Theatre in 2009 with \u201cBeauty\u2019s Daughter\u201d and portrayed Diane then.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt started for me a trend,\u201d said Gobel. \u201cI went on to do nine one-person shows. I\u2019m comfortable in that space.\u201d<\/p>\n
The co-founders of OnWord Theatre, from left, are marketing director Danielle Bunch, producing artistic director Marti Gobel and managing director Jamaelya Hines. (Michael Hari \/ Fade Out Media)<\/p>\n
Diversionary Theatre\u2019s Black Box is the space for this production of \u201cBeauty\u2019s Daughter,\u201d an intimate setting where, Bunch said, Gobel and the characters she plays are all that is needed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t need to cartwheel across the stage to make it interesting,\u201d Bunch said. \u201cWe can let the words and the character that are so larger than life live and exist in their truth onstage.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gobel describes \u201cBeauty\u2019s Daughter\u201d as \u201ckind of a memory play. You meet Diane where she\u2019s at. Then she talks about how she got there. It starts when she\u2019s 16 and then it\u2019s one terrible day where three people are talking about the same vent that shaped Diane. Then you understand where she gets devastated and decides that there\u2019s hope for her younger self.\u201d<\/p>\n
The spoken word segments are \u201cthe inner workings of Diane\u2019s thoughts,\u201d Gobel said. \u201cThey are literally pieces of her journal. They touch on where she has been, where she is now (35 at the time of the play). They\u2019re more just a bridge. They explain why she has to move in the world the way that she does.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey highlight the rhythm of her heart.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bunch said that OnWord\u2019s choice of \u201cBeauty\u2019s Daughter\u201d was a natural.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think this play really encompasses what our name is,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s a wordy script that\u2019s gritty and yet beautifully poetic and it speaks to the ways that we have to just deal with the world around us. There are a lot of parallels people will find to their own personal lives.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Beauty\u2019s Daughter\u2019<\/p>\n
When: Opens at\u00a0 4 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 15, and runs through Nov. 30. 7 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays; 4 p.m. Saturdays; 2 p.m. Sundays<\/p>\n
Where: OnWord Theatre at Diversionary Theatre\u2019s BlackBox, 4545 Park Blvd., #101, San Diego<\/p>\n
Tickets: $33.29-$43.89<\/p>\n
Phone: 619-892-8123<\/p>\n