They are singing in the rain, after a sort, but as water rains down on these five teenagers, they are also singing about the pain. Living away from home at a boys' boarding school, their relationships with their parents under various strains, they harmonize on "Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child" in the gym shower. The water pouring on their naked bodies suggests a purifying ritual, a moment in which the private becomes the communal, and it is one of the most striking moments in Choir Boy, a play made up of striking moments.
But the harmony is only temporary, a reprieve from frictions both typical of adolescent habits and special to the circumstances to these students at Charles R. Drew Prep. The school has a distinguished history of mentoring African-American youth, and endowments needed to underwrite this education partly come from the renown achieved by its a cappella choir. The five students who make up this choir carry not only high expectations for their own futures, but also some responsibility for the school's ongoing financial well-being. Add an obviously gay kid into a student group that sees itself as righteous, and at a school worrying about appearances, and pressures are pushed to a breaking point.
Marin Theatre Company is presenting the area premiere of Tarell Alvin McCraney's recent play, an intriguingly different look at contemporary black society than he previously presented in The Brother/Sister Plays, a trilogy that Marin Theatre helped produce locally five years ago. Those plays, set amidst the Louisiana bayous, mixed ancient mythologies and often-stylized dialogue into their contemporary settings. The characters in Choir Boy speak more realistically, but there is something of a time-warp insularity to these contemporary lives.
It's in this netherworld that the play's subtext of homophobia exists. The stern but thoughtful headmaster is not so much disapproving as astonished that any gay relationships could even flicker at his all-male boarding school. But the slurs that the merrily effeminate student Pharus Young endures in the very first scene are definitely part of our modern vernacular. They set forth a cascade of turmoil at the school.
McCraney's play is an assemblage of scenes that finds its glue in the spirituals the choir performs between the scenes. The songs have relevance to the specific moments in which they are performed, and as stand-alone attractions, they are a joy to hear in the quintet's passionate performances under Darius Smith's musical direction. That passion for both the music and the choir is what pushes the play forward, even as it heads off into detours.
In its 100 minutes, the play tells its different stories in numerous scenes. It's not all about Pharus and the limp wrist the headmaster is forever chastising. One particularly potent scene involves the chorus members heatedly debating the history of spirituals, and what their legacies bring to those singing them today. The sum of the scenes, however interesting unto themselves, doesn't necessarily pull together into a cohesive whole.
Still, it is an impressive production that director Kent Gash has mounted on the Marin stage. He previously staged the play in Washington, D.C., and he brings that helpful experience to the current production. The only wrong note comes at the beginning, when Pharus is heckled while singing the school anthem, and the whispered slurs come booming out of the theater's sound system. It's a confusing start that soon sorts itself out.
And as much as I admired the palpable exuberance in Jelani Alladin's performance as Pharus, I also found it sometimes confusing as well. For most of the play, his effeminacy is unobtrusively manifested, but occasionally Alladin's Pharus breaks into over-the-top camp that doesn't ring true. His schoolmates are all vividly conceived, with Jaysen Wright on the honor role for his sensitive yet bemused performance as Pharus' jock roommate. Both actors played these roles in Gash's Studio Theatre production in Washington.
As Pharus' main tormentor, Dimitri Woods is a scary bundle of anger, while Rotimi Agbabiaka gets laughs as the bully's slow-witted lackey. Forest Van Dyke plays a meek student aspiring to the ministry before a stunning explosion of pent-up truth. Ken Robinson is a convincing beacon of authority as the headmaster, and Charles Shaw Robinson has an easygoing charm as a veteran white educator pulled out of retirement �" at least until he is broken by what he sees as racially self-loathing hostilities amid the choir boys.
Jason Sherwood's scenic design makes a handsome statement, looking something like the Oval Office if it were repurposed into a vintage gentlemen's club with a mahogany veneer. Portraits of recognizable black icons ring the room, with Barack Obama getting three spaces. But strangely, the play just doesn't feel like it exists in a time or place where Obama is president.
Choir Boy will run through June 28 at Marin Theatre Company. Tickets are $20-$58. Call (415) 388-5208 or go to marintheatre.org.