Review: MARCUS: OR THE SECRET OF SWEET

By Toby Zinman

For the Inquirer

If I hadn't seen Marcus: or the Secret of Sweet before—McCarter's brilliant 2009 production—I would have very little idea from the new Plays & Players production what this play was about. Nor that it was filled with charming, moving characters. Nor that it was often funny. A lugubrious, pretentious, and dreary show, this Marcus is a sad disappointment.

This is the third play of Tarell Alvin McCraney's trilogy, The Brother/Sister Plays, and although it adds layers to see all three (the middle play, The Brothers Size is currently at Simpatico Theatre Project), each play can stand alone.

Marcus (Erin Fleming) is poor, black, young and gay ("sweet" in Southern slang)—not an easy combination in rural Louisiana. And so Marcus is both a coming out drama and a growing up drama, as he confronts his dreams of foreboding—storm's coming—his dead father and the secrets of his family's past.

His two best friends (Taysha Canales and Janan Ashton) both know and don't know Marcus is gay; his uncle (James Tolbert III) knows, his mother (Jaylene Clark Owens) tries not to know and a conjure woman (Zuhairah McGill) won't tell. There is a mysterious man (Andre Brown), a dream vision, who seduces him. That this sexual initiator is from the Bronx but speaks with the same Louisiana accent is an unintentional mystery.

Director Daniel Student manages to stretch the playing time to twice its length; at least an hour of the current 2 ½ hours is wasted in tedious pauses, extended musical numbers, and slow talk. (Student seems to prefer slack to taut: his Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson ran an hour and half longer than any other production of that show.)

And speaking of talk, the actors—many of whom cannot project their voices—are using thick black Southern rural accents, rendering much of what they say unintelligible, at least to me.  This difficulty is made worse by the bizarre delivery in which they pause between words in ways that render syntax meaningless. The poetry of the script never emerges. The actors' portrayals often border on caricature, and the effect, when not stupifyingly boring, is embarrassing.

My favorite line from the play is Marcus's about being a teenager: "when you wanna/Just get up on table tops and scream." I know what he means.

Plays & Players, 1714 Delancy Place. Through Nov.3. Tickets $25-30

Information: www.playsandplayers.org or 800-595-4849.