Diversity Personified in Daniel Beaty's 'Emergence-See!'
By Peter Marks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, July 9, 2007
Daniel Beaty doesn't really qualify as a one-man band. He's more like a full orchestra.
You get an inspirational session with his virtuosity in "Emergence-See!," his entertaining solo show at Arena Stage about the diverse aspirations of contemporary black America and the need for African Americans to stay in touch with the past.
If "Emergence-See!" comes across at times as too message-heavy, at least the message is conveyed in a rousing package. The gallery of characters channeled by Beaty puts his gifts for mimicry and musicality on vivacious display.
What this young actor seeks to do over the course of 90 minutes is provide a snapshot of modern city life chiefly through the experiences of a Harlem family consisting of a widowed father, Reginald, and his two grown sons, Rodney and Freddie. We learn, for instance, that Reginald, a professor of Shakespeare, has never fully recovered from the murder of his wife in a senseless street crime.
Describing the nature of the father's mental instability, Beaty poignantly explains: "His mind took him to a place his heart could handle."
Beaty takes the rest of us to a fantastical moment in present-day New York City, when an old slave ship mysteriously rises from the water around Liberty Island, home of the Statue of Liberty. Relying heavily on metaphor, Beaty spins a tale in which, to the consternation of Rodney and Freddie and the delight of the news media, Reginald boards the vessel (called "Remembrance") and confronts the spectral image of a captive on the slave ship.
This is not quite as contrived as it sounds. As Beaty dexterously propels the story from one amusing character to another, the portrait of black urban life expands as well. Some of Beaty's best characters are people in the orbit of Freddie, Rodney's gay brother: transgendered Ashes; homeless James, who offers a moving tribute to his mother's pound cake; and "Jamaican god" Anton, whose rationale for identifying himself as white on job applications you'll have to hear for yourself.
The piece may jump around a bit, but it speaks coherently to the idea of reconnecting, as if "Remembrance" has materialized to alert a community that the only way one progresses is to honor where one came from. (It seems that Reginald, who was active in the civil rights movement, feels he's failed to pass on to his sons that idea of commitment to a cause.)
Rodney and his generation, however, look for their own causes. For Rodney, the most passionate connections are literary: the slave ship shows up on the day he is supposed to compete in a poetry slam. The scenes at the poets' cafe radiate theatricality, as Beaty offers up stirring versions of each contestant's poem.
Dressed modestly in brown slacks and light-colored shirt, Beaty works the material on the stage of the Kreeger Theater at an impressive clip, the music of his oratory adding texture to the monologue. He's so good at this that perhaps he doesn't need to exhort his audience so heavy-handedly. August Wilson, for instance, approached this same topic with far more subtlety in, among other plays, his "Gem of the Ocean."
On top of everything, Beaty shows himself in "Emergence-See!" to be a gifted singer. A man, you might say, of a thousand pleasing voices.
