The lobby is playing a light soundtrack of black music, when I say light I mean in volume for the room is stoked by the presence of the music as if the bass was turned all the way up, and you cannot distinguish heartbeat for backbeat. That is where the familiar begins, sets you on edge as you climb the small riser to your seat. You feel the women in the room, you feel the women no longer there. You feel your family matriarchs with you, take breaths as them as your eyes meet the set, which is majestic with simple gestures of home reclaimed. There is a large bookshelf, the shelves broken, items seem fixed in time, unmoving even though the physics of distress tell you all these shelved items should be floor bound.
Stage right, in the corner is a riser set up for percussion. The cymbals, the chimes, the various drums all placed in mastery. There is a genius to the set design that is very present letting you know that the rhythm of this journey you will be on will be present and in service. There will be a dance, the dialogue of which taps at your genetic memory. A few tears wet my cheek as I take this all in, for in the midst of this country seeming to melt down, in the face of such leader-led ugly here you are being represented so elegantly by a theatre known for its social justice backbone. The cynic in you has left the body, the body is open and even though you know that you, and every black person present belongs there, that you and yours belong wherever you please – you are still grateful for the hospitality.
A thank you has already become lodged in your throat and the play has not even begun.
Nina Domingue’s Ya Mama! is tradition led celebration, both in form and function. It is Black Woman Magic memoir, a memoir that is so raw and honest that it becomes universal in the first ten minutes. Ya Mama! is formally inventive for its pace and the consistent transitions Domingue uses to signal a new character, or a returning one. With 27 characters being introduced I was amazed by how well the voices of them stayed consistent for the entire play, Domingue’s skills are unmatached, she is an amazing performer, you can sense a telepathy between Bill Ransom’s tremendous percussion score and Domingue.
What intrigued me most was trying to discern what was director led, and what was writer led, the self awareness of the material leads one to believe that it’s all director led, and Nathan Henry proves to be quite a technician in his ability to shape the play without forcing his hand, for me this is crucial for theatre and something that is rare, for most productions the director is such a force that they become a character in the piece, but Henry respects his role and is able to give critical shape to the proceedings without placing his ego outside of serving the show. This underlines just how valuable a moment Ya Mama! is, for this is a woman’s journey through loss, and discovery that is so timely to the moment so exacting in its beauty that there is no room for any other agenda.
There is a section of the play that had me in tears – Domingue shows us the inner demon, that nagging voice inside a head that is trying to consume her, it is masterful in pace and so carefully ordered as the adult Nina battles with how she was raised, and what she wants to be as a mother. There is not one time in the entire section where you feel that a judgement has been made, I’ve never witnessed the concept of Agape Love played so surely in a work of art. It is the kind of moment that reminds you of our collective beauty, and the beauty of our individual stories when told sincerely and without compromise. I think this may be built into the fabric of Cleveland Public Theatre’s bones. CPT continues to push boundaries while actively listening to the material being presented, I never felt that the production was forced, or out of the norm, it felt like justice, it felt like I had entered a portal where the world we all hope to build actually existed.
