The idea of making a deal with the devil, exchanging your soul for some sort of talent or prosperity, gets a deeper and more sympathetic airing in playwright Donnetta Lavinia Grays’ mysterious, poetic solo show Where We Stand.
Now wrapping up its run at Stage West Theatre in Fort Worth, the co-production with Dallas Theater Center reopens at Bryant Hall on Feb. 25. Heady, provocative and moving, it showcases the gifts of iconic Dallas actor Liz Mikel.
Over the course of 70 minutes, she sings and speaks in sometimes rhyming verse, playing a variety of roles using subtlety different voices. It’s a quiet tour de force that includes audience members playing small parts, singing along and engaging in call-and-response.
Her character is simply called “Man,” a stand-in for anyone who has faced what Akin Babatunde calls in his director’s note “the tension between self and community, between desire and consequence.”
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Before Mikel entered the room at Stage West on opening weekend, an announcer let the audience know they’re at the town center. They’ve been handed a pouch containing two stones, one white, one black, to vote with at the end of the show. Should the Man receive mercy or justice?
Mikel enters soulfully humming and begins shaking hands with the crowd before mounting the nearly bare thrust stage, close seats on three sides, to plead her case. A lonely outsider in her town, “a village of turned backs,” she tells us about being given the opportunity by a mysterious stranger to bring prosperity and thus recognition for herself.
The arrangement turns out to be temporary, the audience having to decide whether the Man should be sacrificed for the good of the community or spared at the cost of losing what it has gained through the bargain.
This fable-like crossroads is made palpable by Mikel’s ability to mesmerize the audience with chant-like, repetitive wordplay and a cappella music, including original songs that sound like old spirituals. The effect is surprisingly uplifting, a rare chance to seriously consider the nature of human existence, particularly the price of our actions.
Details
Through Feb. 15 at Stage West Theatre, 821-823 W. Vickery Blvd., Fort Worth. $44-$50. stagewest.org. Feb. 25-March 22 at Bryant Hall, 3400 Blackburn St. $83.80-$113. dallastheatercenter.org.
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