Word: mamma
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Baker writes of blood, mixed now with white; slave rebellion; slave capture. "Me, Ezra, and Mamma was all hid in a tunnel behind the wall of the cabin when light flashed between the slits in the board..." A few pages and generations later, a young American black man, well dressed, we assume, money in his pocket, we assume, watches poor blacks in the Caribbean and thinks, "I wanted a connection to these people, wanted to share pots of curried goat and warm lager in Trenchertown because I was one of them." Imagining: "Black people gonna rise up." Knowing sheepishly...
...quickly established that Brad's siblings are staggeringly mean, given to berating him in tandem with statements like: "If we put mamma in a home, she'll die, you know. And it'll be all your fault." But other than this single, salient feature, none of the characters are clearly drawn. We know that Scott's a jerk because he's a Christian minister, which in this context is shorthand for hypocritical bastard. He's also deserving of ridicule because he refuses to have premarital sex with his dishy girlfriend Candice (India Landigran), even though, oddly, he seems to live...
...sakes?--and Farnsworth does a good job in this scene, alternately stricken and hopeful. But the tension of the moment is dissipated in a ghostly flashback, which takes us back to the months before the lost baby died, leading us to believe that it was this event that pushed Mamma over the edge. As this was crystal clear already, this final scene comes across as contrived and melodramatic...
Despite a few good moments--usually having to do with the siblings' reactions to Mamma's seizures, which run a convincing range from sympathy to loathing to terror--most of "Rust" is slack and predictable. Farnsworth has managed to build a play that works, but only barely--hopefully he will continue to produce more sophisticated plays, and allow this first effrt to fall back into the gentle obscurity it deserves...
Brattle Theatre. 40 Brattle St., Harvard Square. 876-6837. "Mamma Roma" at 3:30, 5:40, 7:50 and 10 p.m. on Thurs., March 9. "Ladybird, Ladybird" at 4, 6, 8 and 10 p.m. from Fri., March 10 through Thurs., March 16, with Sat. and Sun. matinees...