Sal Capone at the NAC suffers from communication problems

Sal Capone: The Lamentable Tragedy of …By Omari Newton

Directed by Diane Roberts. NAC English Theatre— a  Boldskool production with Holding space productions

It’s only reasonable that anyone with a genuine social conscience might be driven to embrace the idea of a stage piece driven by the truth that black lives do — really do — matter.

But it might be stretching matters somewhat to assert that the current offering in the NAC Studio — Sal Capone: The Lamentable tragedy of —  is really injecting any fresh insights into the conversation. On the other hand, it’s rather difficult to know for certain.

What this production of Montreal playwright Omari Newton’s 2013 drama does provide are moments of bold theatricality and a rhythmic insistence that can easily become seductive. And there is no doubt that it is fuelled by anger — anger arising from the real-life 2008 shooting of an unarmed black teenager by the Montreal police.

Anger is a legitimate response to a human tragedy  — a tragedy that certainly did not occur in isolation. But does Sal Capone really offer anything beyond that emotion? Again — difficult to say.

Similar horrors to what happened a decade ago in Montreal can be found elsewhere in North America. The concerns raised by such incidents — police brutality, racial tensions, the plight of the marginalized and disadvantaged —  insist on being heard and debated and fought about. Theatre is an obvious forum for exploring such volatile issues, and in Sal Capone they find utterance through the language of the streets — the language of hip-hop.

That Diane Roberts’s production is punctuated by moments of pure theatre is undeniable. Those pulsating, accelerating ensemble outbursts of rough, raw poetry are intense and alive. Designer Ana  Cappelluto’s set — dominated by a dumpster and scaffolding — is an appropriately absurdist presence in a world where a measured naturalistic response seems scarcely adequate. And there are moments when Troy Slocum’s soundscape slashes through our complacency with unexpected savagery.

But that same soundscape is responsible for a faltering opening in which an extended cacophony of noise and visual imagery is intended to alert us to the importance of what we are going to see and hear,

It was evident the other night that it had something to do with a shooting tragedy in Montreal, but it then collapsed into a meaningless smudge of sound that went on and on and on.

Then came the play’s chorus — in the person of a cynical drag queen named Shaneyney. In this role, Troy Emery Twigg earned high marks for insinuating body language, but not for audibility. With that opening monologue, one was hard-pressed to know what she was saying to us.

A production that cares more about sensory impact than safeguarding a play’s substance, not to mention its narrative cohesion, is puzzling and somewhat distressing. There is no denying the integrity of this effort, but how well does it communicate? The other evening, you couldn’t help but wonder how many in the audience understood that it’s about a rap trio named Sal Capone and the crisis it faces after its DJ is shot dead by the police.

Perhaps this talented company is having trouble adjusting to the demands of the NAC Studio and ensuring effective transport of the language of hip-hop — effective enough to demonstrate that there’s more to the script than those repetitions of the F world that do manage to make contact with the audience.

There are moments when playwright Omari Newton’s text does break through — for example, a fiery debate about whether the group should proceed with a record launching, a scene noteworthy for the anguished dignity of Tristan D. Lalla’s Sam and the insensitive let’s-get-on-with-it pragmatism of the group’s manager played by Jordan Waunch. And sometimes Newton gives us a line of  rough-hewed  poetic beauty. We hear about roses pushing through concrete, want more of this, only to experience a return to inaudibility.

Still, amidst the recurring incoherence, there was one character who remained insistently, urgently alive the other evening. Kim Villagante, a dynamo of a performer, was outstanding as Jewel, an aggressive Filipino rebel with her own sense of self-worth in the face of a male-dominated culture. When this actress spoke and rapped, you heard and understood her.

Still, there’s a difficulty in sizing up an evening that is frequently inaudible. No doubt Sal Capone is back on the boards because of the Black Lives Matter movement. Still, it’s maybe asking too much of it to hail it as some kind of theatrical break-through. Black Lives also mattered in August Wilson’s Fences and all the other works in his remarkable play cycle; in Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin In The Sun; in Lost In The Stars, the Kurt Weill opera based on Alan Paton’s Cry The Beloved Country; in white playwright Edward Albee’s shocking The Death Of Bessie Smith; and yes in the Gershwin brothers’  Porgy And Bess. Still, despite whatever production problems it may currently be suffering. there is a burning artistic and moral commitment at the heart of Sal Capone. It has earned its place in the lineage.

 

Sal Capone: The Lamentable Tragedy of continues at the NAC Azrieli Studio to April 21.

Director/dramaturg/co-producer: Diane Roberts

Set and lighting: Ana Cappelluto

Sound: Troy Slocum

Costumes: Sarah Hall-K

Dramaturg: Emma Tibaldo

Video designer: Candelario Andrade

Cast:

Naomi Salazar………………….Letitia Brookes

Freddie Salazar Jr………………Tristan D. Lalla

Mac/Shaneyney……………..…Troy Emery Twigg

Jewel De la Reyas………………Kim Villagante

Chase Stagnetti………………….Jordan Waunch