BWW Reviews: THE BROTHERS SIZE is Theater of Mythic Portions at Actors Theatre

Al Shands - retired Episcopal minister, revered art collector and inspired observer in Louisville and around the world of the relationship between art and the eternal - once wrote in his church's weekly newsletter about the power of myth. He wrote that myth does not mean something that is not true. Rather, "myth takes place between the intersection between this world and a world that is coming into being." Experiencing the power of myth is taking part in a grand story.

The writers and performers of the stage are in many ways the ancestors of the epic writers and fireside storytellers who gave their ancient contemporaries the tales by which they became something more than animals searching for their next meal. They gave the immediate and everyday substance. Permanence. Transcendence. Sacredness. They bridged the gap between the world that is and can be, and they guided their listeners across.

Tarell Alvin McCraney's "The Brothers Size" may be the closest thing the modern stage offers to a drama that approaches that level of ritual, transubstantiating the mythic into flesh, blood, words, and rhythms before our rapt eyes.

McCraney's magic, staged by director Tea Alagic in Actors Theatre's Bingham Theatre, begins before most audience members even realize it. During the pre-show, percussionist Ben Williamson begins a slow, trancelike groove, gradually building to a frenetic and lively pace, introducing the viewers to the many modes of communication that will tell this story. He continually comments throughout the play on the characters and action with thunderous bass tones, frantic high-pitch pops and ethereal chimes and bells. It's at once a clever and instinctive soundscape, enhancing the immediacy of the action and elevating the significance of every moment.

When the play proper begins, we open on Oshoosi Size (Larry Powell), caught up in a fevered nightmare that leads the audience into the realm of dream language. The waking action introduces us to Oshoosi's older brother and keeper, Ogun (Che Ayende) and his best friend and fellow ex-con, Elegba (Ronald Kirk). McCraney has the characters speak their stage directions on top of their dialogue, instituting a dichotomy that these characters are also the storytellers, the purveyors of the myth we are intellectually observing and, disarmed and seduced, viscerally experiencing.

The characters' names and types are taken directly from the Nigerian Yoruban culture (notes in the program explain everything you need to know, but really, won't even have to ask). McCraney transplants them to the Louisiana bayou and makes each a contemporary embodiment of fierce passion and torment. Ayende, Kirk, and Powell run a full gamut of emotion from righteous rage to utter devastation. They are merciless in revealing the hopes, fears, suspicions, regrets, and scars that make them universal. The audience is there every step of the way, unable to look away, yet persistently reminded of the didactic quality of the work - thus enthralled on many, many levels. When Ogun brings the show to a close with neither a bang nor a whimper, but a pronouncement, the response is immediate.

Thunderous applause.

No one is unfamiliar with the contemporary struggle of theaters to attract and retain audiences. A play that reaches back to our roots, that engages us in a timeless ritual and reminds us of the power of story to resonate deep inside us, to subtly elide the Teller and the Told in the universal struggle of existing in any age, in any place - that is what the theater needs. That is what churches need. Right now, at least for the month of January 2015, Actors Theatre has it.

The Brothers Size
By Tarell Alvin McCraney
Directed by Tea Alagic
At Actors Theatre
Through February 1
For tickets and more information, go to www.actorstheatre.org.

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