Review: HOODED OR BEING BLACK FOR DUMMIES at Echo Theater Company At Atwater Village Theatre

Rule #32 of the fictional how-to manual "Being Black for Dummies" is straightforward: "Never forget you Black." Rule #33 is even more direct. "I repeat. Never forget you black. No matter what you doin', good or bad, be conscience (sic) that you a Black man moving through space. Think about every word you say, every action you make, and judge that up against all the Black men that ever was and ever will be."

Got it? OK. then. The person reading these directives aloud about mid-way through Tearrance Arvelle Chisholm's play HOODED, OR BEING BLACK FOR DUMMIES, soon reaches the conclusion that it's no easy lift to go through life as a Black man. "What's a Black man to do?" he asks. "How do I know when to be what? And how much? And what is the real me?" Given the circumstances of the play, there's plenty of irony in this realization which I will leave to the viewer of this marvelous production from the Echo Theater Company to discover.

The moment is more than ripe for a play like HOODED, a dangerously smart and wickedly funny satire enjoying its L.A. premiere at the Atwater Village Theatre complex. Director Ahmed Best pilots a pitch-perfect cast across Chisholm's landscape of sociological minefields, stopping along the way to give us time to consider similarities between Nietzsche and Tupac Shakur, and the metaphysical clash between Apollo and Dionysus while also imparting some characteristics about different breeds of dogs. HOODED may also contain the funniest and most subversive pre-curtain announcement of recent memory. The malevolent policeman named Office Borzoi (played by Robert Hart) instructs us to turn on our phones, allow them ring on high volume and take whatever pictures we want because "none of this is important." Pointing to a "laugh" sign, the likes of which you might see in a live studio taping, he informs us "Laughing when the light is off makes you a racist."

Got it? Good again. Director Best most certainly gets it, and his production expertly blends fantasy, pop cultural references and the keen observation of a sharp script. HOODED is an instruction manual for lovers of good drama.

Our heroes are two boys, 14-year-olds Marquis (Jalen K. Stewart) and Tru (Brent Grimes) who meet in a jail holding cell. Marquis, the adopted son of a white family living in Achievement Heights, Maryland, was nabbed for trespassing and "Trayvonning" (posing face down for photos alongside a can of Arizona Sweet tea and a bag of Skittles in a cemetery). The kid's a high-achieving nerd at a mostly white school with white friends who could have been best buds with Carlton Banks of THE FRESH PRINCE OF BEL AIR fame. By contrast, Tru is a chronic troublemaker from the streets of Baltimore. Expertly working the woke sympathy of Marquis's lawyer mother, Debra (Tasha Ames), Tru secures himself a place in both Marquis's school and his home. Doing Marquis a solid, Tru decides his new friend has lost touch with his "Blackness" and can use a primer, Hence his creation of the manual BEING BLACK FOR DUMMIES which, in addition to its rules, includes a ton of 2Pac lyrics. Tru cautions Marquis that the manual must never fall into the wrong hands. It does.

In addition to Debra and Officer Bozoi, the play's characters are mostly made up of Marquis's schoolmates at Achievement Heights Prep. Marquis's dim-witted best friends Hunter (Vincent Doud) and Fielder (Ezekiel Goodman) envy Marquis both for his being Black and for his stable family situation. A clique of Achievement Heights Prep girls are themselves pretty shallow. Hunter's crush, Meadow, (Clare Margaret Donovan) is a hard-core authority on Disney princesses who asks "who the eff is Harriet Tubman." Prairie (Ames again) is slightly less insipid, albeit barely while Clementine (Betsy Stewart), is easily the smartest of the bunch. She has eyes for Marquis, and the feeling is mutual.

Chisholm examines the bifurcation of Marquis and of Tru through a sociological prism. The series of encounters between Tru and Marquis, between Marquis and his male friends and various boy-girl hookups are carefully structured, repeated and built upon as "stutter scenes" and played to great satiric effect. Stewart's preppy uptightness eventually gives way to reveal something deeper while Grimes makes Tru the embodiment of temptation, straddling a line between charisma and malevolence. Although it's a little bit of a stretch to accept both performers as adolescents, the two actors anchor the production.

Ames does solid double duty as Marquis's uber-zealous mom and the dizzy Instagram-loving Prairie. And Stewart's down-to-earth Clementine shines while experiencing a journey of her own. Props go also to HOODED's technical team, notably sound designer Alysha Grace Bermudez who does excellent work with a lot of character defining and scene-bridging sound and music.

HOODED (2017) may not be a new play, but we should all be keeping a close eye on the progress of Tearrance Arvelle Chisholm, a man who in his own words "[writes] plays that span space, time, and multiple universes; where memories lecture, elephants sing, and cotton fields grow in kitchens. With the help of Echo's Best and a solid cast, he has given L.A. playgoers a how-to to savor.

HOODED, OR BEING BLACK FOR DUMMIES continues through April 18 at the Atwater Village Theater, 3269 Casitas Ave., L.A. (310) 307-3753, www.EchoTheaterCompany.com.

Photo of Jalen K. Stewart and Brent Grimes by Cooper Bates

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