"FIVE ROOMS OF FURNTURE," Organic Theater Company at Loyola University’s Kathleen Mullady Memorial Theatre
BY LUCIA MAURO
Organic Theater Company has guided Dhana-Marie Branton’s family drama, "Five Rooms of Furniture," through numerous readings and workshops over the past five years. While this play addresses issues of racism, self-interest and healing of old familial wounds, it still has not jelled into a compelling or comprehensible work of theater. So regardless of the time spent honing the script, Branton must delve considerably deeper into structure, transitions and character motivation before her play -- receiving its world premiere -- can make a meaningful impact on audiences.
"Five Rooms of Furniture" also marks the second play Organic is presenting in its larger proscenium space at Loyola University’s Kathleen Mullady Memorial Theatre. Unfortunately, this work is not ready for the extensive amount of hoopla it has been receiving – especially the jam-packed opening night, complete with speeches, which pushed an 8 o’clock curtain to 8:30.
The play itself runs 1 hour and 45 minutes with no intermission. Audiences must wait for the final few moments – after trudging through a series of incongruous speeches and lamentations -- to gain a minuscule understanding of what may have prompted all the confounding conflicts in the first place. As it stands, "Five Rooms of Furniture" consists of disconnected monologues filled with a lot of philosophical waxing but scant revelations about what drives these characters to such desperation. It’s also not clear, early on, how these people are related or what they want from each other.
The title refers (repeatedly) to five storerooms of valuable antique furniture bequeathed to the main character Rufus by a Holocaust survivor named Mrs. Rosenberg (he formerly served as her gardener). Rufus, a disabled elderly man, is the quiet glue that holds together a troubled African-American family on Chicago’s South Side. He is constantly berated by his domineering older sister Ina Mae, who apparently feuded with Rufus’ ex-wife. He lives in the basement of the home Ina Mae shares with her compliant and delusional daughter Vernell, who is married to Gary, a former soldier who suffered some sort of inexplicable emotional breakdown.
More conflict brews when Rufus’ daughter Rachel – an alcoholic -- returns from Naval duty to claim the furniture she hopes to sell. But, because these dysfunctional family members never truly engage, it appears as if they are all fighting a string of solitary battles. Each scene is so awkwardly constructed that it’s easy to watch a full hour and not comprehend who’s engaged in turmoil or what they’re all so angry and frustrated about.
Granted, we do know that Rachel resents Ina Mae for most likely driving away her mother. Both Rachel and Vernell struggle with being invisible – especially in relation to Rachel’s brother (whom we never meet), a surgeon married to a white woman. Rufus anguishes over not being able to make contact with his son. But those scenarios go nowhere. Most ridiculous and offensive is the inclusion of the mentally disturbed Gary, a fitness fanatic in Army fatigues. His "craziness" is beyond cliched and adds no pertinent layers to this problematic script.
In addition, Ina Mae – a dragon lady in fancy clothes and a penchant for dancing around the basement – comes too close to being a thoroughly repulsive and non-redeeming woman. Then at the end, she reveals in one fell swoop of a melodramatic monologue everything from a gang rape and possible lynching to the family’s forced migration from the South to Chicago, as well as her role as a caregiver and fanatically possessive sister. At the same time, she demands that Rufus give her at least one roomful of that vintage furniture. We go from horrifying admissions to buffoonery.
Everyone’s story basically remains dangling.
It looks like the playwright got swept away by her poetic outpourings – most evident in Rachel’s Greek tragedy-like recollections of her time at sea – thus, neglecting to shape these grand speeches into genuine, interconnected dialogue. On the other hand, some encounters feel incomplete. At one point, Vernell asks Rachel, "You gotta man?" She replies, "I gotta phone." End of conversation.
Other lines simply get tangled in cringing cliches. Example: Rufus says, "I fell in love with another woman – Jimmy Beam." Ina scolds Rufus, "You married the first thing that fried you a chicken." Even Rufus’ reflective remark that "Freedom ain’t about holdin’ on; it’s about lettin’ go" falls into the realm of worn platitudes. I wish we knew exactly what Rufus is letting go of anyway.
There also happens to be a gasp-inducing flaw at the heart of Branton’s script. Rufus and his family are fighting to claim Mrs. Rosenberg’s vintage tables and chairs. But these were furnishings the Rosenberg family –custom furniture craftsmen in Europe – had been in the process of completing for customers who soon became victims of the Holocaust. These were the belongings of murdered Jews. Now Rufus and his kin are planning to make a profit from this monumental tragedy. That may not be the playwright’s intentions, but that’s what comes through in the script
Moreover, this reality is so vaguely explored by the playwright, it doesn’t even surface as an overpowering issue. It, like the story in general, exists buried beneath the surface of these people’s erratic stream-of-consciousness musings.
Jonathan Wilson directs a talented cast obviously hemmed in by the play’s wide-reaching flaws. The actors do so much bombastic talking, it’s impossible for them to show more subtle textures. Ernest Perry, Jr., delivers the strongest performance as Rufus – a flawed but wizened man taking candid account of his more regrettable choices. Penelope Walker’s humble and silently unhappy Vernell is thoughtfully defined.
LaDonna Tittle, although a charismatic presence as Ina Mae, often chooses sass over a substantive interpretation. Sandra Watson’s Rachel is locked in an omnipresent stone-cold bitterness. And Stefano Mizell, saddled with the thankless role of the loopy Gary, enlarges every phrase and gesture to gargantuan proportions – an approach that runs uncomfortably counter to the intimate nature of the play.
Scenic designer Brenda Sabatka’s carefully cluttered set magnifies the script’s inconsistencies – a script that sways dangerously between stilted structure and a scattered premise.•
Organic Theater Company’s production of "Five Rooms of Furniture" runs through September 15 at Loyola University’s Kathleen Mullady Memorial Theatre, 1125 W. Loyola Ave. (at Sheridan Rd.). Tickets: $25-$30. Call 773-561-5600 or log onto www.organictheater.com.
