Playwright: Leslie Lee. At: Court Theatre, 5535 S. Ellis. Phone: 773-753-4472. Runs through: June 15
There's some deep, richly intricate character work in Leslie Lee's The First Breeze of Summer. But the Court Theatre production so skillfully directed by Chuck Smith is troubled because Lee's autobiographical drama never quite decides whose story it's telling. The result is a showcase of stellar acting and a dozen or so characters in search of a cohesive plot.
Lee creates the expectation that the journey of Gremmar ( Pat Bowie ) , the grand old matriarch of a tight-knit African-American family, is the heart and soul of First Breeze. But the playwright abruptly switches gears in the final scenes and, suddenly, the woman whose life we have so thoroughly invested ourselves in is no longer the point. Instead, the script does an incongruous flip to Gremmar's grandson, Lou ( Calvin Dutton ) . Gremmar's actions are set to the side; Lou's reactions to them dominate, instead. It's a train jumped off the tracks: The 11th-hour histrionics of the grandchild represent a disconnected and frustrating lurch away from the grandmother whose point of view has been so compelling.
Breeze begins near the turn of the 20th century, as a young, beautiful Gremmar, then called Lucretia, ( Cynthia Kaye McWilliams, lush and luminous with hope and ardor ) is in the giddy, jubilant thrall of Sam Greene ( Taj McCord ) a laborer who leaves to go find work—and never returns. Greene is the first of Lucretia's three loves, all of whom stick around long enough to tell her they love her, but none of whom are willing to make that declaration at the altar.
The narrative alternates between Lucretia's passionate youth and Gremmar's household in the 1970s. Over the course of two sweltering June days, Gremmar relives the three major loves of her younger years while her 1970s homelife reveals itself as a Petri dish of fomenting change. The air might be stultifying, but the world is ripe with imminent upheaval that shows up in small, emblematic events in the lives of Gremmar's children and grandchildren. The centerpiece of the production is an electrifying home prayer meeting that displays the ensemble's intense emotional authenticity. Gremmar and her family are devout and joyous in their worship; their living room testimony is a stellar showcase of extraordinary ensemble work.
Yet the awesome power of the cast ( and this is an ensemble that, led by Bowie and featuring powerhouse turns by A.C. Smith, Jacqueline Williams and Ronald Conner, among others, doesn't have a weak link in it ) can't wholly overcome the troubled script, particularly as it concerns Gremmar's grandson, Lou ( Calvin Dutton ) . Based in part on the playwright himself, the character is problematic and enigmatic. No matter how fine the performances Parson draws from his cast, they don't add up to excellence simply because Lee doesn't provide the textual tools to reach that level.