Written by Suzan-Lori Parks and directed by Associate Professor of Theatre, Speech and Dance Rebecca Schneider, "Fucking A" debuted last night in Leeds Theatre. With a run extending through Nov. 21, the production achieves a rare feat - in a single evening, it manages to mesmerize nearly everyone in the audience with a devastating, shatteringly creative production.
Just a year after Parks' Pulitzer Prize-winning "Topdog/Underdog" finished its run, "Fucking A" was first presented in 2003 at New York's Public Theater and displays the potential of a playwright at the height of her powers.
Drawing on the literary models of her New England predecessors, Parks finds for her latest play inspiration in "The Scarlet Letter." Unlike Hawthorne's alienated adulteress Hester Prynne, however, this contemporary Hester - played here to sympathetic, earthy effect by Celine Justice '05 - wears her "A" for a different reason.
A former scrubwoman, Hester Smith has agreed to take on the unenviable role of abortionist in her nameless, fictional town and is now subject to the scorn and derision of her neighbors. Hiding under the "A" that has been branded onto her skin, she fully inhabits her thankless job to earn the money needed to free her son from prison. Though the audience is never treated to a glimpse of the abortionist in action - there is only so much gore it can take in this very bloody tale, after all - Hester's devotion to her cause is signified by the bloodstains polluting her uniform.
Presiding over this decidedly pro-life community, the buffoonish, belligerent Mayor (James Lowe '05) happens to have married "The Bitch" (Katherine Meister '06), who, years ago, caused the imprisonment of Hester's son.
Meanwhile, back at the abortion clinic, Hester counts on the moral support of her friends Canary (Shannon Ware '04.5), the mayor's mistress whose main ambition is to replace his sterile wife, and the resident butcher (Michael Smith '05), who, in his equally sanguine attire, seems a perfect visual match for an abortionist.
As if the situation didn't already seem far-out enough, Parks has laced her emotional script with several creative flourishes to enhance her play's offbeat, quirky surrealism - and, perhaps, to elevate the allegorical implications of Hester's predicament.
As a playwright, Parks has made a name for herself as a sort of verbal alchemist, capable of turning metaphysical language and her arch sense of symbolism into theatrical gold. "Topdog/Underdog" was hailed for the brilliant, musical pyrotechnics of its dialogue, and with "Fucking A," Parks has taken this musical inclination even further, and with great results.
Backed by a five-piece jazz band, the characters frequently burst into singspiel banter. The tradition of sing-speaking can trace its roots back to pre-war cabarets in Berlin, when Bertolt Brecht and Weill were transcribing complex philosophies to the stage, and Parks has clearly learned from their legacy. Even the song titles, "I Am a Whore" and "The Working Woman's Song," sound Brechtian in the best sense - the actors are able to surmount their vocal inconsistencies with dramatic renderings of the songs' witty lyrics. The first night's audience reacted positively to such melodic interruptions, listening and laughing, spellbound but in on the joke.
Further complicating the story, Parks has effectively created a new language for her script, bits of which can be heard whenever the women want to hide the meaning of their speech. Incorporated to reflect the women's foreign estrangement from their society, and perhaps to imply the taboo nature of certain "women's issues" (the words "abortion" and "period" are almost never uttered in English in the show), the gibberish lines are delivered convincingly by Justice and Ware, and with the necessary irony. To rescue those unfamiliar with the new lexicon, literal English translations are projected above the characters' heads.
The ensuing Greek tragedy of the second act is amply and intelligently supported by the actors' sensitive performances. Justice and Ware are inspired in their roles, the former turning in a truly riveting and psychologically complex performance as the branded abortionist. As the mayor, Lowe is clever and quite funny, though in some ways he fails to capture the subtle villainy driving his character's jokiness.
The breakout performance, however, truly belongs to Biko Eisen-Martin GS, whose muscular frame and complex mood shifts render his interpretation of Hester's criminal son, Monster, one of the evening's most arresting and memorable. In the end, though, "Fucking A" is an ensemble piece, and the cast - with its prison inmates, hunters, and civilians - is one of the strongest in recent memory for a mainstage show.
The mantra Hester keeps repeating to herself while washing a day's work of blood off her hands, "We just gotta get through the day," may be Parks' tragic summation of the plight of the working woman, but by the final scene of this gripping, gorgeous production, the audience will find itself wishing it had never gotten through.
