The actress is competent without being electric enough to make us feel the magnitude of the heroine’s mounting despair.Īction is authentically launched by Andrew Deppen’s set, consisting of tin cans and cardboard boxes hanging from a series of vertical poles, and the sound of overhead passing cars contributed by Matt Anderson and David Ledger. This difficulty is intensified by miscasting Stocker in the central role.
Individual details are honest, but the visceral horror of suffering and starvation fails to come across.
Eleanor Fanyinka as the sleazy, Amiga Gringa and Richard Pepple playing the Doctor are perhaps the pick.As written by 2002 Pulitzer prize winner Parks (“Topdog/Underdog”), the 1999 play, an updating of “The Scarlet Letter,” is a stark, uncompromising drama. The five actors joining Miss Bain each double as one of the children and one of the hypocrites, presenting dual opportunities to showcase talent. While Hester's prostitute friend might be expected to use the unfortunate as a meal ticket and sexual aid, it becomes a bit much when her female social worker, friendly doctor, local preacher and first love all do likewise to varying degrees.Įven so, In the Blood is a powerful attack on a society that does far too little to alleviate poverty and will by default allow economic policy to force the Black underclass into a downward spiral from which there can be no escape. This is also the play's weakness, since the story becomes repetitive. That is remarkable, since everyone that Hester meets tries to take advantage. Despite money problems and constant hunger, she tries her best to bring up the children to know right from wrong. Consequently, she receives minimal financial support from anybody. Natasha Bain gives a really brave performance as illiterate Hester, a good mother bringing up her five children under the shelter of a bridge.Įach of the children has a different father and, despite the efforts of the welfare lady, their mother will not shop the guilty parties. The modern Hester might live in New York but suffers similar problems to her metaphorical great-great grandmother and is equally obsessed with the letter "A". The results, though, are very much the same. That is only because these days, hypocrisy takes different forms. Nathaniel Hawthorne might, at times, struggle to recognise his work in this contemporary (1999) morality tale related in hip street lingo. This is one of two plays that American writer Suzan-Lori Parks has created as modern reinterpretations of The Scarlet Letter.
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