Playwright: Daniel Beaty. At: eta Creative Arts Foundation, 7558 S. South Chicago. Tickets: 773-753-3955; http://www.etacreativearts.org;
$10 (Thurs.)-$30. Runs through: Feb. 23
Tearing Down the Walls presents a talented, energetic and ingratiating cast pumping blood into a predictable and improbable play that really could be any one of four plays. Author Daniel Beaty sketches his characters with quick and colorful but shallow strokes offering familiar types: three best-bud gal pals (one sexy, one ballsy and one wallflower), a pick-up artist guy, a sincere guy and a few miscellaneous characters (all portrayed by the versatile L'Oreal Jackson). Beaty's characters are nearly as bare-bones as the staging, a completely empty stage (not even a chair) with a brick wall backdrop.
Renee is an intelligent, 30-year-old virgin who hangs with gal pals Jessica and Rhonda, attending Jessica's weekly poetry slam for which Renee always writes but never performs. Goaded by her pals, Renee decides to open up but apparently has no avenues for meeting men (what? the poetry slam is women only?). Instead, Renee selects a slick, handsome El-stop pick-up artist (David Goodloe) to deflower her. OK: you just KNOW it's gonna' go bad for Renee and she'll end up reciting her poetry.
One night of unprotected sex later ("I got caught up in the moment" being the only explanation offered) Renee is pregnant and HIV-positive. She's bummed out (duh!) but her doctor turns preacher and re-ignites Renee's faith. Renee prays, and finds equanimity in an unexplained and silent epiphany. Meanwhile, her sincere but bumbling boss, Dennis, cares about her while saving Bronzeville from gentrification.
Now listen up: You can have a play about a 30-year-old virgin and her gal pals, you can have a play about HIV infection, you can have a play about saving Bronzeville and you could apply a gospel overlay to any of them. But you can't have one play about all that stuff. You end up with a work so crammed with consequences and issues that there is no character development and absolutely no subtext: every line of dialogue is bald exposition of what someone is thinking or feeling, or an explanation of an issue. Program notes explain that Tearing Down the Walls originally was a screenplay, which seems odd because everything is told to us and nothing is shown to us. Next play, Mr. Beaty, narrow your issues and ideas and deepen your characters.
The wonder is that Shanel Taylor (Renee), Pearl Ramsey (Jessica), Pamela Sawyer (Rhonda) and Shadow Carr (Dennis), along with Jackson and Goodloe, manage to convey sincerity through all this, and hit the mark in all the comic moments which leaven this mostly-serious work. While I think the empty stage is a big mistake by co-directors Anthony P. Brooks and Kemati J. Porter, they obviously deserve credit for guiding the cast into spirited performances.