Spell #7

The first character to appear in "Spell #7" promises an evening of black magic. That promise turns out to be less about witchcraft than about bewitching performances from an energized Company One ensemble.

"Spell #7" is 25-year-old Ntozake Shange's play that fuses music, dance, and poetry to paint images of the African-American experience. Set in a bar, the play gathers nine artists -- singers, dancers, actors, writers -- who tell alternately personal and iconic stories, the majority of which focus on the struggle for respect and opportunity.

Each performer takes on multiple identities in a sort of relay race of dramatic progression. Shange structures the play loosely, with the meat of the action residing in poetic monologues delivered directly to the audience. The conversations between the characters in the bar, meanwhile, feel too often underdeveloped and serve as little more than short-term transitions.

Whether the premise enhances or alienates, there's no question that Shange's poetic material is respectfully preserved by the Company One ensemble, which treats "Spell #7" like a period piece. If the relationships in the bar had been as carefully crafted as the monologues, the production would be entirely captivating. As it is, the Company One production bounces from dramatic high to structural low. Despite this, several actors in the ensemble sparkle with energy and commitment to a play that demands portrayals that switch from erotic to political to humorous and back again.

As Natalie, Karimah S. Moreland is one of the best at capturing the intensely personal nature of the stories. Moreland is fearless as she portrays a tragically misguided single mother and later an embittered yet entertaining commentator speculating on how white girls spend their time. Dorian C. Baucum plays the many incarnations of Alec with similar concentration. His gravelly voice, catlike moves, and detailed characterizations make him a pleasure to watch. Kortney Adams (Lily) and Jackie Davis (Bettina) also deliver strong moments.

Mark Abby VanDerzee designed a serviceable set for "Spell #7," although the bar includes a fabulous jukebox that deserves to be better woven into the action. Jason Freimark's lighting design is a study in saturation, adding color and dimension to the stage.

Together with choreographer Myisha Rodrigues-Scott, Summer L. Williams directs the predominantly angular movement in "Spell #7." Actors flow toward one another and toward the audience in an urgent, rhythmic manner. Williams manages to wring tremendous emotion out of the nine-person ensemble without encouraging any signs of self-indulgence. It's a tribute to Shange and the ensemble's collective understanding of her work.

Spell #7
By Ntozake Shange. Directed by: Summer L. Williams Set, Mark Abby VanDerzee. Lights, Jason Freimark. Costumes, Joy Adams. Choreography, Myisha Rodrigues-Scott. Presented by Company One.
At: Boston Center for the Arts, through Nov. 20. 617-933-8600.

When Ntozake Shange’s Spell #7 debuted, in 1979, wars were raging on city streets. They were culture wars, and in the battles for equality that were waged, language was a weapon. Many warriors were artists, and Shange was among them. Verse-spurting commandos often appeared in her works too. Now it’s a quarter-century later, and Company One is celebrating Spell #7 (at the Boston Center for the Arts through November 20) with a fine staging of the play, which merits the label choreopoem that Shange assigned to her best-known work, for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf. Even when its nine performers aren’t engaged in explicit choreography, Shange’s language is so musical that the ensemble can’t help but move, sway, and strut to the rhythm of her prose.

The nine African American characters — seven of them actors — are gathered in an inviting Manhattan downtown tavern. Booze is on the house if you’re short on change, and the air is thick with talk of limitations. Outside, these people struggle with futile auditions and being typecast by race. Inside, however, they proclaim, "This is our space and we are not moving."

But movement is precisely the means by which they stake their righteous claims and broadcast their identities. It’s a complex exercise given the era’s racial polarization. And inasmuch as they’re performers, the characters make their livelihoods pretending to be someone else. Unraveling this knot makes for a dynamic affair. Our host is Lou (a stern Michelle Baxter), a minstrel magician who sets the tone of the play by conjuring the historically rooted, oppressive stereotypes that society cannot seem to shake. Lou says, "Nobody gonna be made white just by a clap of my daddy’s hands."

With the mantra "colored and love it, love it and colored" pulsing like a bass line, these New Yorkers offer testimonials of struggles — in the theatrical world, on the streets, between the sheets, and in history. If you think this sounds dated, you probably consider Stevie Wonder and Nina Simone passé too. What this anniversary production reminds us about today’s world is that cultural perceptions haven’t evolved as fast as technology has.

Under Summer Williams’s direction, the Company One proceedings get a mainlined shot of sultry sass. The evening flows like a jazz concert: as an ensemble the performers are solid, but each member also steps up to solo. There’s a rent-party quality to it all, and a chemistry that crackles when the chummy posse square off for a battle of the sexes. And keep your eye out for the sarcastic speculations of Karimah S. Moreland’s Natalie on a day in the life of a white girl and for the myth-infused monologue song that Melanee Addison’s Maxine delivers to explain the devastation she suffered when she realized that, contrary to her childhood idealized image of African-Americans, her culture is susceptible to societal ills.

A different war thunders beyond the walls of Sligo General Hospital circa 1944, the setting of Devanaughn Theatre’s Bella Donna (at the Piano Factory through November 21). This play by Sligo-based John Kavanagh, which is getting its American premiere, centers on four patients in the bleak hospital under the care of a no-nonsense nun (a tart Dani Duggan). Three are American soldiers whose plane went down on neutral Irish soil. The other is a comatose local chap, Jack (Webb Tilney, deserving credit for managing a mostly stock-still unconscious presence), who’s prone to bouts of claptrap, outbursts that lighten up the pervasive grimness. Jack’s dutiful girlfriend, Maria (Alex Zielke), visits regularly and provides a welcome distraction for the cheeky, surly, laid-up soldiers as well as for the dashing American medical officer (Richard LaFrance) who arrives to bring the soldiers home. Nurse Mahon is not amenable to his interfering with her regimen, but Maria is quite is open to him.

Rose Carlson’s even-handed direction of the piece illuminates the clash between freewheeling, loudmouthed American culture and tight-lipped Irish traditions, but Kavanagh needs to cut back on the social-issues talk and the small-town gossip that clutter the script. Devanaughn’s talented actors supply robust portrayals, but that can’t save a play when the script plunges like the soldiers’ B-17 into a gooey marsh of predictability, with mechanical lines like "I’m afraid, very afraid" and "What about for once in your life admitting you’re in the grip of something?" Bella Donna, unfortunately, provides little to be in the grip of.

Ensemble is magical in spotty 'Spell #7'