Playwright: Javon Johnson
At: ETA Creative Arts Foundation,
7558 S. South Chicago Ave.
Phone: (773) 752-3955; $25
Runs through: April 20
'Actor's Play' is a term applied to drama—often, but not always, written by a current or former thespian—in which literary values take a back seat to opportunities for performers to display the extent of their talents in scenes demanding a wide range of emotions and physical movement. The recently produced That Championship Season is such a play, as are most of Harold Pinter's exercises. Javon Johnson's Homebound, premiering at ETA, also fits this category.
What we know at the outset is that we are in a juvenile reformatory in a room housing four inmates. They are Darnell, called 'Spit' by his comrades, a cheerfully compulsive wanker. Calvin and his brother Jake, aka 'Kane' and 'Smoke,' the former fiercely protective of the latter. And then there's the new guy, Raymond, soon rechristened 'Pistol,' a fledgling Bible scholar. By intermission, we know where they come from, what brought them to their present predicament, and that each has a secret that will precipitate a moment of crisis in the second act.
On one level, Homebound refers to the sentencees' date of release, but on another, it hints at the spiritual shackles that determine the shape of their uncertain futures. Raymond finds his salvation in the gospels—or rather, in their universally humanitarian precepts—but his willingness to share his discovery is not enough to keep his fellow sinners from the despair that will be their undoing. Especially Kane, whose criminal career is founded on guilt at his sibling's fate and whose greatest fear is the birthday that will mandate his transfer to adult prison.
Derrick Sanders, a veteran of Congo Square Theatre, directs a company whose expertise belies their youth, making for distinct and plausible personalities rendering articulate and coherent performances in spite of the questions Johnson leaves unanswered (Is Jake really the innocent his brother believes him to be? Why does Raymond's mother, on whom he dotes, bring him small gifts, but refuse to see him?). But for all the disbelief we are asked to suspend, the issues addressed and dynamics explored provide a welcome look beneath the surface of urban stereotypes to the wasted human potential engendered by social irresponsibility.