| Six scenes of confrontation, SUNSET BABY starts inflamed and doesn’t let up. While it lacks tonal variety, the play’s galvanic structure gives all three actors regular opportunities to mine rage for sorrow which they do expertly. The play is shot through with the heartbreak of disillusionment. Activism, its promise, discontents, and consequences, is the real subject here. Morriseau exalts social change movements even as she recognizes how fealty to necessary causes can cause unintended harm; though the social contract is in tatters, efforts to repair it can be ruinous, especially to families. The emphasis on Black Nationalist ideology, its ascent and collapse, is yet the play’s weakest element, the activist father the least persuasive character on stage. SUNSET BABY is an uneasy, and finally unconvincing, mix of political theatre and domestic drama. |
