The Bluest Eye heartbreaking


HARTFORD — Could there ever be anyone more disenfranchised than a poor young black girl in the 1940’s?
This heartbreakingly poetic play, “The Bluest Eye,” evocatively written by Lydia Diamond, is based on Pulitzer Prizing winning author Toni Morrison’s first novel by the same name.
The play centers on Pecola, played by Adepero Oduye, an 11-year-old girl suffering from an extreme degree of neglect from her mother, played by Oni Faida Lampley, whom even Pecola calls Mrs. Breedlove.
Pecola convinces herself that she would be loved if she only had blue eyes, and she focuses her will on a disastrous course.
Set in the 1940’s, first in Kentucky and then Ohio, Pecola’s drunken father Cholly, played with sorrowful dejection by Leon Addison Brown, burns down their house, and she comes to live with Claudia, her sister Frieda, and their parents for a time.
The actors who play Claudia, Pecola, Frieda, and later the white girl Maureen Pearl, are all adult young women, played by Bobbi Baker, Oduye, Ronica V. Reddick, and Shelley Thomas, respectively.
The fact that they are adults playing children made their performances all the more riveting. They captured child-like innocence, playfulness, truth speaking, and at times the real essence of boredom and anger that children sometimes feel.
They had plenty to be dissatisfied with. It was a world of appearances where Shirley Temple was the ideal child dancing with Bo Jangles, and even black girls received blonde blue-eyed dolls to play with.
The nice quality of nostalgia is it takes some of the sting out of the heartless and atrocious way society dehumanizes, damages, and in some instances, destroys those who are most at risk.
The play is relevant today, too, because, although we are subtler and externally politically correct, we still live in the crazy world of appearances — grounded in the steadfast belief and complete falsehood that “might makes right.”
While most of the actors in this play are new to the Hartford Stage Company, Miche Braden, who played Mama and a woman character, is no stranger to Hartford audiences, having played in “Mahalia — A Gospel Musical,” and “The Devil’s Music: The Life & Blues of Bessie Smith.”
Braden has a glorious voice, and each time she sang within the context of the play, it was a joy to hear. She was also fine as the frustrated but loving mother.
Baker, who played Claudia, did most of the heavy lifting, shifting seamlessly between adult narrator to a child who was fortunate to have enough love in her life to be righteously furious over the inequities of the world.
Often funny, always innocent, sometimes joyful, and totally fragile, Oduye’s Pecola was the lynch pin to the success of this play, and she completely delivered a vulnerable and gifted performance.
In the beginning of this astonishingly poignant play, the actors were at times difficult to understand, but as “The Bluest Eye” unfolded, the diction and pacing improved.
There were some amusing moments, and occasionally the actors didn’t pause long enough for the laughter to subside before speaking, but this will surely improve as the run continues.
The complex and varied set by Scott Bradley was ideal and compelling, using the entire stage beautifully, with complementary and inventive lighting by Russell H. Champa.
Mark Ting, who is the Long Wharf Theater’s artistic director, fluidly directed “The Bluest Eye.” The show has a shorter run than usual at the Hartford Stage, ending on March 23, and continuing at Long Wharf through April 20.

Three stars

Theater: Hartford Stage Company

Location: 50 Church Street, Hartford

Production: Based on Toni Morrison’s novel “The Bluest Eye” by Lydia Diamond. Directed by Eric Ting. Scenic design by Scott Bradley. Costume design by Toni-Leslie James. Lighting design by Russell H. Champa. Original music and sound design by Michael Bodeen and Rob Milburn.

Running time: 1½ hours with no intermission

Show Times: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Sunday at 7:30 p.m., Friday and Saturday performances at 8 p.m., with matinee performances Sunday and selected Wednesdays and Saturdays at 2 p.m. through March 23.

Tickets: $23 to $64. For further information call their box office at 527-5151, or visit their website a www.hartfordstagecompany.org.

ACTOR...CHARACTER
Bobbi Baker ... Claudia
Miche Braden ... Mama/ Woman
Leon Addison Brown ...Cholly
Ellis Foster ...Soaphead Church/ Daddy
Oni Faida Lampley ...Mrs. Breedlove/ Woman
Adepero Oduye ...Pecola
Ronica V. Reddick ...Frieda/ Darlene
Shelley Thomas ...Maureen Pearl/ White Girl/ Woman