Get a 'Belly' full of ghetto cliches
Law & Order Lite: The Belly, a premiere by G. Lloyd Morris, provides every cliche, every stereotype, every predictable plot turn in this TV-wannabe drama. The only things surprising are the presence in the cast of Yvette Ganier, an Obie Award-winner with Broadway cred, and director L. Kenneth Richardson, who founded the Tony Award-winning Crossroads Theatre Company and has serious regional chops elsewhere. Did they read this script before signing on?
Law & Order
Lite:
The Belly
, a premiere by G. Lloyd Morris, provides every cliche, every stereotype, every predictable plot turn in this TV-wannabe drama. The only things surprising are the presence in the cast of Yvette Ganier, an Obie Award-winner with Broadway cred, and director L. Kenneth Richardson, who founded the Tony Award-winning Crossroads Theatre Company and has serious regional chops elsewhere. Did they read this script before signing on?
The title refers to an area in the depths of a vicious anywhere-in-America ghetto. Given that, what might you expect? Here's a checklist:
Characters:
Old black guys, jivin' and jokin' and drinkin' whiskey out of a bottle in a paper bag.
Young black guys, dealin' drugs, carryin' guns, shootin' the rival gang members, and gettin' sentimental about murdered relatives.
Everybody droppin' their g's. (And not only g's - the 'hood dialect is often so authentic and the actors so unable to project, you don't know what was actually said.)
Occasional fat hookers strutting by or servicing locals in an abandoned car.
Plot:
High school honor student is initiated into gang life and shot down in the street.
Grieving, clueless mother devotes her life to finding the killer.
Shift in power as one gang leader is violently dethroned and another violently ascends.
Blind girl hears all the events in her backyard, while her father tries to protect her.
Former Belly resident becomes a city official (his character's name is Turner Coates, just to give you an idea of the subtlety here), and vows to clean up the neighborhood and make a pile of redevelopment money along the way.
Sound and set:
Dogs barking, engines revving, gunfire, gangsta rap blaring over a trash-filled yard with drugs stashed in old potato chip bags.
Acting:
Basic requirement for the young: ability to jump over a chain-link fence.
Basic ability for the old (or those playing the old): overact and showboat.
Push every predictable sentimental button - rage, guilt, regret - in every predictable way. And take a very long time doing it: i.e., stare, slump, slouch, smoke.
The Belly
Presented by Temple Theaters at Randall Theater, 13th and Norris Streets, through Nov. 23. Tickets: $20. 215-204-1122 or www.temple.edu/sct/theater.EndText
