TATUM FAMILY BLUES
ETA Creative Arts Foundation
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Charles Michael Moore claims to have structured Tatum Family Blues along the lines of a jazz piece. The theme–“put your own house in order”–seems clear enough. But though the playwright’s attempts at variations on that theme can be detected, the narrative’s allegorical content is coupled with an earthbound TV-comedy execution that makes for some irritating dissonances. Topics are also introduced and then left dangling; for example, a brief conversation about light-skinned children being valued over darker ones could have posed some questions worthy of discussion, but it’s cut short and never resumed. The various two- and three-character scenes are bridged with family quarrels that seem to arise from nothing more than childish petulance. There’s also a subplot involving Ramsey, some stolen money, and a lot of bad press. After we’re thoroughly confused, Moore gives his hopelessly tangled yarn a swift and incomprehensible resolution that has something to do with Chordam’s apparition being the ghost of Marcus Garvey, who died on–whattaya know–June 10, 1940. Then Moore ends the Tatum family feud with a big, warm group hug so phony and facile that one wonders why he didn’t just bail out by saying it was all a dream.
IMAGINING BRAD
Mary-Arrchie Theatre Company
