Review: EVERY SATURDAY NIGHT at A.C.T. Strand

A weary Donte Coleman sits in his Western Addition family home that he’s just listed for sale. In this well constructed memory play, scenes from his childhood burst to life in SFBATCO’s homage to the golden age of 1950’s San Francisco’s Fillmore district. Local legend Daryl V. Jones is the elder Donte who’s struggling with abandoning his mother’s legacy and the only home he’s known. Who should receive the legacy of the district and its history in a thread woven through this piece.

Flashing back to his youth, we meet his strong-willed single mom Ardella, played with star power by Cathleen Riddley. She lords over her paid-for home, organizing her weekly ‘after hours’ juke joint every Saturday night. It’s an honoring of the community, its culture and music, and illegal bringing weekly harassment by the cops. Her dutiful son Donte (a bravura performance by Jacob Henrie-Naffaa) assists his mom while also harboring a secret desire to be an actor.

Using a non-linear structure, we witness Ardella’s struggles with the oncoming redevelopment fear, the forced migration out of their homes by rising prices, her absent husband, and her determination to sit pat in her home. Initially she’s got her head in the sand to the growing storm till she’s converted by her militant renter Doris (Imri M. Tate). In a present-day narrative, Donte is debating selling to an upscale Black family from D.C. with a testy young son with no clue about culture.

Danny Duncan’s semi-autobiographical story and music is both dramatic and boisterous. Not your typical Broadway verse-chorus melodies, his songs are often short expository missives. Co-writer Michael Gene Sullivan, Collective Member and Resident Director of the San Francisco Mime Troupe, adds his political and social justice themes that are all over this production. Black gentrification, urban renewal, and the cancel culture all figure prominently. Doris’s righteous indignation ranting against the evil ‘in suits rather than sheets’ is Mime Troupe material.

Will elder Donte sell to the ‘right kind of people’ suggested by the Heritage Association’s idea of a ‘black bougie fantasy’? Will Young Donte’s role as Peter Pan in a high school play shock his mom? Every Saturday Night is chock full of subplots and many critical issues. AaJay Antonis Marquis directs the huge cast nimbly and adds the rousing ensemble dance numbers backed by Othello Jefferson’s musical direction. It seems the same issues that destroyed the vibrant Fillmore District of the 50’s sadly reverberates today.

Every Saturday Night continues through November 1st. Tickets available at sfbatco.org

Photo credits: Alexa LexMex Trevińo