Review: TONI STONE at The Alliance

It's pretty rare that a theatrical title protagonist who narrates their own story feels like a unique experience. Especially with a common structural metaphor: baseball. TONI STONE by Lydia R. Diamond and directed by Tinashe Kajese-Bolden is the exception. A co-production with Milwaukee Repertory Theater on the Coca-Cola Stage until February 27, 2022, Alliance Theatre shares that "TONI STONE is considered "the "Best New Play of 2019" by The Wall Street Journal," and "is a funny and fascinating story of race, gender, and raw ambition... and an unheralded superstar you'll never forget."

As an authentic real-life shero, pioneer Toni Stone was the first woman to play baseball in the negro leagues as well as the first to play professionally in the men's leagues. Not only does TONI STONE explain how this revolutionary broke through the barriers of a male-dominated sports world, this play is about the fight for having it all-a chosen life worth living with a supportive family worth chosing.

Toni is exceptionally depicted by the unforgettable Kedren Spencer. Not since David Henry Hwang's M. Butterfly has a character so willfully grabbed an entire audience and led them through their own imaginations, while feeling the living of the life of the leading character. From the moment Kedren's foot hits the footlights, we are riveted by how she manages to lead us with such relentless magnatism. The story simply wouldn't be the same without her epic energy, talent, and skills. She's simply Toni.

Amar Atkins, DiMonte Henning, Enoch King, Sekou Laidlow, Eric J. Little, Laurie Roach, Dane Troy and Geoffrey D. Williams are experts of physical manipulations and contrasting supporting characters. The eight of them (making a cast of a baseball team, nine) change the room and it's intensions with exquisitely nuanced supporting characters that catalyze the story, sometimes literally, with the wizardry of a single hand waving across their own face. They are all magicians changing masks at the speed of a big-league fast ball.

Dell Howlett's choreography emerges in essential moments on Tony Cisek's sparse and framed "outfield" of a set that carefully holds our mind's eye's visions in place. An essential and sturdy foundation underneath an entire world. It's blank spaces are a gift. Giving us just enough room for a partnership between our own imaginations and the play's unfolding. The smallest of gestures equal the power of a scream. The designs of costumer Kara Harmon, composer Derek A. Graham, sound maker Sharath Patel, and LX creator Thom Weaver fit together like tight jazzers who've been playing in a family band. Every color that appears, every light that dims, is no accident.

Throughout the show, spontaneous applause, shouts, gasps, and thunderous silence from the audience add to the cycle of a true theatrical conversation. For if you're lucky enough to sit across from the stage, you'll be a part of a story of not only how to manifest an experience, but a life.

Photo Credits: Michael Brosilow