Review: RED HARLEM at Company Of Angels

We have become accustomed to stories set in Russia to be replete with intrigue, spies and all manner of menace. But suppose a journey behind the Iron Curtain was proffered as – of all things – an opportunity for social and cultural liberation! That’s the intriguing premise behind Kimba Henderson’s play RED HARLEM, an inspired-by-true-events look at the recruiting of African Americans to Russia to make the 1932 film BLACK AND WHITE, a supposed blockbuster about – and starring - African Americans funded by Joseph Stalin and the Communist party.

Truth may well be stranger than fiction, and with an occurrence like the making of BLACK AND WHITE, it’s probably also a lot more nuanced. In the premiere of RED HARLEM at Company of Angels, director Bernadette Speakes’s production offers some frequently dynamic staging which is brought down by a mixed bag of acting performances and the heavy-handed messaging of Henderson’s script. You’re already rolling the dice when the events you’re chronicling include the social activist Louise Thompson and the poet Langston Hughes, neither of whom makes it into your play. But so it goes. The quartet of Harlemites who venture east looking with stars (or safety) in their eyes are people dreaming of a better future for themselves and for their race.

They are Selena (played by Fana Minea Tesfagiorgis) a sexy Cotton Club performer who is ready to become a legitimate star; her elevator operator lover Will (Ahkei Togun), himself an actor who can’t rise above parts in minstrel shows; Lenore (Rama Orleans-Lindsay) a teacher turned Communist newsboy looking to make her break as a performer; and an opportunistic numbers runner and bootlegger who goes by Shifty (Luis Kelly-Duarte). En route to Russia, they encounter an array of movie producers and functionaries, a Berlin nightclub owner; and an American engineer who is working on a bunch of deals with Russia. As previously noted, Langston Hughes is lurking somewhere on the fringes of the plot (he’s supposed to rewrite this movie’s script), but we never encounter him.

Pretty much every person we meet gets a character-defining “here’s who I am” monolog (sometimes it’s a song) in the spotlight as part of their audition. These come in response to questions from BLACK AND WHITE’S producer James Ford (Micah Johnson) that feel like something out of A CHORUS LINE. “Do you believe your status quo can change, Mr. Stanton,” he asks Will, who gives a thoughtful and poignant reply, one which will echo back later in the play.   

Never mind the ever fluid plot of BLACK AND WHITE…our central four are living out their own Hollywood tale. This is a story full of romance, deception, opportunities advanced and squandered and realization after realization that the socio-political grass is not greener for Great Depression-era Black Americans when it’s fertilized by Reds. We are treated to some seriously steamy dancing by Tesfagiorgis and a delectable version of “Mack the Knife” from Dylan Jones as Velma, the one-legged chanteuse at the Wunderbar nightclub. Working with a character who has an air of mystery below her surface, Jones gives the most interesting performance while Kelly-Duarte’s street-smart Shifty is clearly having a high old time.

Although Costume Designer Mylette Nora outfits the cast appropriately for 1932, much of what comes out of their mouths often comes across as trite, jarringly contemporary or both … utterances like “Trust the process,” or “When the government funds the arts, it’s easy to pull the rug out from under you.”

Via a nimble assortment of rotating doors and panels, Justin Huen’s scenic and lighting design globetrots the action from New York streetcorners to nightclubs from steamers to trains and back home again.

RED HARLEM plays through March 15 at  1350, San Pablo St, Los Angeles.