By Peter Thomas Ricci<\/p>\n
When Raven Theatre Artistic Director Cody Estle introduced the company\u2019s opening night performance of Katori Hall\u2019s \u201cHoodoo Love,\u201d he referenced the play\u2019s 2007 Off-Broadway premiere, and how a New York Times<\/i> review described the work as \u201ca creditable early effort\u201d by \u201ca strong presence.\u201d Though Estle was referencing the sentiment as a product of it\u2019s time \u2013 and that Hall, now with \u201cThe Mountaintop\u201d and \u201cTina\u201d under her belt, is a major force in American theater \u2013 Anne Midgette\u2019s 2007 review holds up as an honest assessment of a play that cannot quite rise above its inspirations, even in a production as perfectly staged and cast as Raven\u2019s.<\/p>\n
Set in Memphis during the Depression, \u201cHoodoo Love\u201d follows the familial, artistic, and romantic struggles of Toulou (Martasia Jones), a young woman from the Deep South with two primary passions: her aspirations of becoming the next Bessie Smith; and her dreams of starting a live with Ace of Spades (Matthew James Elam), a charismatic blues singer with a wandering spirit and<\/i> a wandering libido. Desperate for Ace of Spades\u2019 heart, Toulou appeals to Candylady (Shariba Rivers), her nonagenarian neighbor who, through a history that includes enslavement and patriarchy of every iteration, has perfected many of the spells and elixirs of hoodoo. As Toulou and Candylady craft their hex on Ace of Spaces, however, Toulou\u2019s deeply religious brother Jib (Christopher Wayland Jones) enters the scene, bringing both his fire-and-brimstone rhetoric and his deeply unsettling closeness to his younger sister.<\/p>\n
Hall\u2019s narrative arc is a compelling one \u2013 I can\u2019t think if another play that centers a female blues musician, even though the early history of the blues is chockfull of amazing, dynamic women \u2013 but her execution is a bit flawed. For starters, scenes are often sequenced in an awkward way. Characters are not so much developed as placed together in scenes, and it\u2019s not always clear how things are developing as the scenes play out. And the dialogue that propels those scenes is, on occasion, laden with cliches. Although Hall does pull off the occasional flourish, she still leans far too heavily on the work of earlier writers, and as a result, the dialogue does not sparkle in the ways she intends.<\/p>\n
Even with those drawbacks, however, Raven\u2019s outstanding cast and crew still make this a play worth seeing. Under Wardell Julius Clark, the actors are uniformly superb. As Candylady, Rivers is both charming mystic and wounded human; as Jib, Jones (who I have seen on stage since he was a student at DePaul) is slimy, hilarious, and compelling; as Ace of Spaces, Elam is every bit the charming artist he\u2019s supposed to be; and as Toulou, Jones is both a compelling lead and a generous colleague, playing beautifully off the styles of her three co-stars \u2013 and singing beautifully while she\u2019s at it.<\/p>\n
On top of the performers, every other aspect of the show is first rate. The music direction of Ricky Harris grounds the material in 1930s, as does Alexi Chaney\u2019s costume design. Sydney Lynne Thomas\u2019 set designs beautifully maximize Raven\u2019s smaller Schwartz Stage \u2013 until things literally split open in spectacular fashion at the play\u2019s conclusion. And Simean Carpenter\u2019s lighting adds a mystery and power to the hoodoo sequences.<\/p>\n
So while \u201cHoodoo Love\u201d is not a perfect play, Raven\u2019s staging has certainly brought out its very best elements, and for that it should be praised.<\/p>\n
Recommended<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n Playing through Dec. 15 at Raven Theatre, 6157 N. Clark Street, Chicago IL 60660<\/span><\/p>\n Tickets can be purchased at raventheatre.org or 773-338-2177<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Peter Thomas Ricci When Raven Theatre Artistic Director Cody Estle introduced the company\u2019s opening night performance of Katori Hall\u2019s \u201cHoodoo Love,\u201d he referenced the play\u2019s 2007 Off-Broadway premiere, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39776,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,41,245,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music-news","category-features","category-musical-theatre","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39775\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/39776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}