Shakin’ the Mess Outta Misery @ Soul Rep Theatre Company
Photo credit: Anyika McMillan-Herod
—Jan Farrington
Playwright Shay Youngblood’s early work Shakin’ the Mess Outta Misery (1988) in some ways feels like a story we’ve seen before, of a young girl abandoned by her own mother and raised by a group of loving women—both family and friends.
But there’s more than the usual dose of vinegar and sass to the cocktail mixed up by Soul Rep Theatre Company and director Anyika McMillan-Herod—and performed with a vibrancy that gets us past the bare-bones feel of the production, with a wide sheet/tarp for a backdrop, and some potted plastic flowers rimming the stage. (The show, up only through this weekend, is performed in a glass-walled pavilion at the center of Dallas Heritage Park; on the night I came, I had to ask a wandering group of Hamilton re-enactors where to find it.)
And the good news is, none of that matters.
Yes, the seven women of the cast could use a better sound system to pick up their more intimate words—but their voices ring out in great chants and songs, and in the “teaching moments” that matter. The chants become dances that pull us into a sense of history and heritage. And with the director’s help, the actresses create memorable, quirky, unexpected portraits of small-town Southern Black ladies of the years leading up to and through the Civil Rights movement. If this is Youngblood’s version of her own story, then she was a lucky girl to be surrounded by the extraordinary women of the “Number Two Mission Prayer Group.” Shakin’ is, as McMillan-Herod said in opening remarks, a loving tribute to the grandmothers, the aunties, and all those who put in the love and work of raising up the next generation of women.
Notable among the cast are Brittney Bluitt as Daughter, her expressive eyes drawing us in and marking her frequent shifts from child to teen to woman. She can time travel just by undoing a braid and swinging her feet. Bluitt is equally effective as the noisy little girl and the composed woman who grieves over burying the “last one” of these ladies. Monique Ridge-Williams can raise me any day: her Big Mama (Daughter’s grandmother) is God-fearing but open-hearted; strict but loving; aware of evil (it’s Big Mama who tells the girl of lynchings, rapes and other horrors of their past) but rejoicing in the good she finds in others. Big Mama keeps a canny eye on her sister Aunt Mae (the compelling and funny Renee Miche’al), who drinks, entertains husbands not her own, and lives like “every day is the Fourth of July.” Miche’al is an unrepentant, eye-opening, life-giving spirit.
Kayla Gilchrist is a ghostly, beautiful presence as Fannie Mae, the Daughter’s lost mother. Miss Lamama (La-Hunter Smith, fierce and dainty—and sounding like Eartha Kitt) wears African dress and leaves Daughter “the gift of pride.” Natasha Wells’ extraordinary voice opens the play, and her snuff-taking Miss Corine is a remarkable blend of comedy and courage. And Jasmine Shanise makes us blink by playing three such different roles we take a moment to be sure it’s her…again.
Youngblood’s script gets a bit episodic as Daughter encounters each of the older women. And the play itself might be a tad long to run without an intermission (or some judicious editing). But every time we reach a point where the talk-talk is a bit much, a song or a dance breaks out, and we’re grinning again at the sheer heart of these women, who have seen much, but keep on struttin’ their stuff. And in all of it, they are leading Daughter “to the river” where she, and they, will rejoice in the Woman she’s become.
If it all sounds a bit church-lady, a bit bawdy, and a bit hilarious…that’s right.
Running from November 11th-14th (in-person performances); December 20th-26th (streaming performances)
More info: http://www.soulrep.org/
