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It's difficult to make too many overarching judgments based only on what just opened at The Public Theater—Parts 1, 2, and 3—but seen in isolation, and as a promise of what's to come, this would appear to be Parks's most potent and mature work yet. For unlike many that have preceded it, such as the Pulitzer Prize–winning Topdog/Underdog, this writing earns what it achieves, but also the way it achieves it. Rather than rely on symbolic tricks or conceits to use as cudgels to drive her points home, Parks lets the words and their presentation do all of the talking. This look at three black perspectives of the Civil War (future installments will cover other conflicts in other eras) begins with "A Measure of a Man," which applies a layer of Greek drama to a simple question: Will a slave join the war and fight, or will he stay behind at the cost of his soul and the foot he may have to cut off to justify his decision? The exposition is laid out in the opening scene by the "Chorus of Less Than Desirable Slaves," with a Leader (Russell G. Jones) who wastes no time. "We don't know if Hero is going or not. / All we know is the sun's gonna rise, God willing, / But when it comes to Hero, / We gotta wait for his word to know what he's doing." The choice facing Hero (Sterling K. Brown) consumes the entire running time, as we view the matter from not just his perspective, but also that of his beloved Penny (Jenny Jules), the jealous Homer (Jeremie Harris), their ancient father (The Oldest Old Man, the presiding Tiresias, portrayed to doddering perfection by Peter Jay Fernandez), and the Chorus, whose eyes and words pierce into all the deeper issues. Everything unfolds with Oedipus-level gravity, whether Hero analyzing his own constitution or his dedication to owners old or new, the condition and location of Hero's ultra-loyal dog Odyssey, or especially the scenes in which Hero struggles against severing his foot for the potential greater good. These are giant concerns, with major implications, that are not lost on these people, so the scope doesn't feel as forced as you might expect. Parks and director Jo Bonney are so good at amplifying the natural tragic tendencies that you never doubt that this was a wise way to go. (The set by Neil Patel, the costumes by ESosa, and the lighting design by Lap Chi Chu further underscore the stark, sparse theatricality.) The playlets that follow, "A Battle in the Wilderness" and "The Union of My Confederate Parts," are considerably less thematically vivid, but more believable and compelling from a dramatic standpoint. The former examines the exchanges between a Confederate commander (Ken Marks) and the Union officer (Louis Cancelmi) he's taken prisoner—the Yankee leads the First Kansas Colored Infantry—and the second looks back at Part 1's West Texas homestead to see what impact Hero's action had, and what happens when a man who calls himself Ulysses (Brown again) tries to integrate himself into that world. Constructed from more realistic spins on more recognizable concerns, Parts 2 and 3 are more easily digestible, and show how seriously Parks views and executes her charge here. Though Hero's presence or absence is a critical element of these, as with Part 1, they venture to diverse places and ideas to investigate other ways the Civil War shaped African-American identity, and how the corrupting force of war could pollute even the happiest of events. (The Emancipation Proclamation factors prominently into Part 3, if not quite as you might expect.) Regardless of where the focus is, the actors are superb, with Brown the most astonishing: At once heavy in wisdom but light enough to be likable, he effortlessly depicts the nuances of being a man at the crossroads of personal and political history, and juggling challenges few others would have to. Jules and Harris are dynamic as his romantic and social foils, and move just as seamlessly between stratospheric and ground-level speech; Marks and Cancelmi master their own, very different, language for their confrontation, but weave it well into the broader whole. So does Parks, by and large. She quite successfully explores many angles of the prevailing attitudes of the time, even if her approach can occasionally seem jagged. (Moving from the intense lyricism of Part 1 to the gritty earthiness of Part 2 is a jolt, but acceptable; discovering that Part 3 lacks a piquant voice of its own is less so.) Where she stumbles are the stories themselves: Only Part 3 fills out its lengthy running time (upwards of 45 minutes), whereas Parts 1 and 2 Parks must deploy an overload of style to pad a few minutes of plot to full one-act length. None of the three Parts is strong enough to stand alone, and even with guitar-playing Steven Bargonetti linking them with his musical narration they don't naturally flow into each other. For this reason, it wouldn't be desirable to see any by itself (there's but one intermission anyway), and there aren't many clues suggesting how Parks can adapt what she does here in such a way to ensure that the six Parts to come feel cohesive on their own terms and as inextricable components of a single, sprawling effort ŕ la Tom Stoppard's The Coast of Utopia or Horton Foote's The Orphan's Home Cycle. Such worries, however, can be held for later. Father Comes Home From the Wars is off to a bracing start, and, more than with any other Parks play to date, it's intrigued me enough to be genuinely curious in how the battles it documents, some of the saddest but most defining in American history, sort themselves out.
Father Comes Home From the Wars (Parts 1,2&3)
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