REVIEW: 'The Nashville Monologues' from Rhubarb Theatre Company

If there are a million stories in the Naked City, then surely there have to be at least half a million in the Music City - and a couple dozen of those stories are recounted in The Nashville Monologues, the new play onstage through next weekend at Darkhorse Theatre.

The latest production of Rhubarb Theatre Company, from the fertile mind of playwright Trish Crist, who doubles as artistic director for the company, The Nashville Monologues focuses on bias, hate and prejudice and challenges audiences to look within themselves for what it is they hate, who it is they hate, and perhaps most importantly, why it is they hate. It's pretty serious stuff, although there is enough levity to lighten the situation, and only the most hard-hearted won't be moved by what is portrayed on stage.

Crist is blessed with a talented ensemble of eight multi-ethnic actors who relate the tales, some of which are clearly more provocative, even somewhat shocking, than others. Thus, the script requires actors with whom the audience can identify and relate to, if the stories are to be effective rather than manipulative. As both playwright and director, Crist does a good job of assigning the right story to the right storyteller. Her staging of the work and the ensemble performance of her actors ensure that the tales are well acted and compassionately told.

The stories begin with Phil Brady and the rest of the ensemble asking "Who Do You Not Like?", confronting the audience about their own prejudices and preconceived notions - not in a particularly uncomfortable way, but stridently enough to make you feel some discomfort, allowing you to prepare for what is to come in the two-act play.

During the two acts, the ensemble poses such rhetorical questions as "What does hate taste like?" and "What does hate sound like?", exercises that allow the audience to examine their own answers to those questions.

The stories are universal and most could be set anywhere in contemporary America and still retain the ring of truth, while only a few seem setting-specific to Nashville. In fact, at least two of the stories focus on Giles County, located in southern Middle Tennessee. One, told movingly by Wesley Paine, is about a high school teacher forced out of her job by a student's speculation that she is a fortune-telling witch who has set up shop outside of town as "Sister Donna." Interestingly enough, the school she left is Richland High School - the site of one of the first high school shootings in American history, coming some four years before Columbine - that left two teachers and one student dead.

Laurel Baker tells the other Giles County story, "Actually, Pulaski Rocks," about city leaders' decision to upend efforts to commemorate the founding place of the Ku Klux Klan with a brass historic marker. They place the marker on the building, as directed by the Registry of Historic Places, but place it writing side to the wall so that it cannot be read, effectively refuting the KKK's place in the history of the small town.

Several of the stories are told verbatim from the individuals who submitted their tales of hate, racism, sexism, homophobia, anti-Semitism - all of the "isms" you can imagine - including "Real Shit Overheard," in which adults (not children) say the darnedest things; "My Hate Crime Story," in which a lesbian activist is attacked by a knife-wielding woman in the parking lot of a gay nightclub; "The Biggest Lily Pad in the Pond," in which Diana Holland tells a modern-day fairy tale; and "I Was At the Bank," in which a young African-American woman, played by Raemona Little Taylor, tells about a verbal and physical assault that took place at her bank during her lunch hour.

In another true-to-life entry, "How I Became a Lesbian," Robyn Berg portrays a woman who explains that her rage led her to embrace homosexuality, a notion that I have trouble wrapping my mind around. I cannot imagine an audience accepting a man's contention that he became gay out of rage at women. The lesbians in Sunday's audience, however, seemed very supportive of the woman's decision.

While many of the stories related are very serious in tone and dramatic in delivery, there are some stories that will make you laugh, including "A Straight Guy in the Theater" in which Mike Baum laments his character's lack of luck with the ladies who seem to prefer "shiny dancers" aka gay men to a straight man who can sing the score of West Side Story and "moves well." And Shawn Whitsell's "Baby Daddy," in which a young African-American man tells of his joy at being a single father, is sweetly moving and surprisingly poignant, which may well expose an audience member's preconceived notions about that subject.

- The Nashville Monologues. An original play by Trish Crist. Presented by Rhubarb Theatre Company at Darkhorse Theatre, 4610 Charlotte Pike, Nashville. Through November 7. For ticket information, call (615) 397-7820.