Black Gold at InterAct

Theater Name: InterAct Theatre Company
Show Title: Black Gold
Opened: January 25, 2008
Seen: February 1, 2008
Reviewer: Dawn Cowle
Submitted: February 3, 2008

InterAct was founded in 1988 with the mission “to educate, as well as entertain its audiences by producing world-class, through-provoking productions, and by using theatre as a tool to foster positive social change.” Among the many theatres in Philadelphia, InterAct is the only company that deals primarily with political plays, creating a niche for itself among the larger theatres in town that focus on show stopping dance numbers, high end production values, and populist entertainment. Black Gold, being billed as a “hilarious satire about class, race, and greed” fits the mission to a tee being a new, award-winning play (It recently won the Smith Prize, an award given by the National New Play Network for best new play focusing on American Politics), however, despite its good intentions, on the whole the show falls short of being the “hilarious satire” it sets out to be.

The plot goes something like this: Curtis Walker, an auto worker in Detroit’s inner-city wants to send his only son to college so he can have a better life. Instead of getting a second job and saving up money, he buys an oil rig on Ebay, and taps into what becomes one of America’s largest oil reserves. Six actors play over 100 characters (though I only counted about 20 major ones) showing what happens when America suddenly doesn’t have to rely on foreign countries for its oil dependency.  The actors which include Craig Alan Edwards, Delante G. Keys, Kaci M. Fannin, Sean Christopher Lewis, Maureen Torsney-Weir, and Tim Moyer do the best they can given the innate problems within the script.

My biggest problem with the script is that it didn’t know what it wanted to be. There were too many story lines that Rozin was trying to weave in including one about two actors in the Middle East, one Palestinian, and one Israeli who wanted to stage Lysistrata to encourage the two fighting cultures to make peace, (and they act a part of it out on stage, with giant cardboard phalluses to boot) another about genocide in Malawi, and finally another about a bumbling president trying to win re-election and figure out the energy crisis (one solution: burn books! Another solution the committee comes up with- rats, and last but not least, people!). Though Rozin tries his best to weave all the story lines together, the only one that really works is the secondary storyline with the President because he ends up ordering the military to occupy Walker’s home and claims the oil as property of the U.S. Government. Had Rozin just focused on the primary story line the whole show would have seemed more focused, and perhaps the characters themselves would have had a stronger journey.

Though there were some stand out performances including Delante G. Keys as Sam Claxton, a resident of Walker’s neighborhood, Kaci M. Fannin as Juanita Bailey, and Sean Christopher Lewis in pretty much every part he tackled, it was very difficult to see the actors part of the time. I don’t know if this was due to Peter Whinnery’s lighting, or Rozin’s blocking, but it would have been nice to see more of them. Marka Suber’s scenic design and Karen Ledger’s costume design both deserve praise because they do the job without pulling focus, which is commendable because the script does so much of that on its own.

Bottom line, if you like what InterAct does in general, you might like Black Gold. Having seen more than a few plays there, I can attest that many of their shows are hit or miss, some are brilliantly acted and directed (ie last seasons Skin in Flames), and some are just okay. If you like jokes that about 10 years old, (intern blow job jokes, eBay jokes, etc.) and can follow the inside jokes Rozin makes to the theatre community (did Toby get the “Witch of the West Bank?”) then you might just have a blast, otherwise wait until they produce Bryony Lavery’s Frozen later this season, which is sure to be a hit.