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The Bluest Eye
Based on the novel by Toni Morrison
Adapted for the stage by Lydia Diamond
Directed by Hallie Gordon
At Steppenwolf’s Upstairs Theatre
1650 N. Halsted
Chicago, IL
Call 312-335-1650, tickets $20
Fridays & Saturdays at 7:30 PM
Sundays at 3 PM
Running time is 90 minutes with no intermission
Through October 28, 2006
The need for self love aptly illustrated in The Bluest Eye
Toni Morrison’s novel, The Bluest Eye, adapted for the stage by Lydia Diamond, is a moving look at ugliness, both internal and external. The Steppenwolf production is a remount of the February, 2005 production of Steppenwolf’s Young Adult series aimed at high school students. I enjoyed the show despite the slow pace and the over used narration.
The story involves two Black families living somewhere in Ohio in 1941. Claudia (Libya V. Pugh) and Freida (Monifa M, Days) come from a loving family with a tough, loud mother and a caring father. While Pecola Breedlove (Alana Arenas in a movingly gentle performance), the ugly 11 year old girl comes from a destructive, non-loving family where Cholly, her father (Victor J. Cole) suffered from a lonely childhood that left him homeless at age 15 in the Rural South. He wondered across country having a nasty first sexual experience that was interrupted by two white crackers who made him have sex with his girl at gun point with flash lights on them. Sex then became associated with violence and humiliation for him. He drinks to hide his shame.
Eventually he marries Pauline (Chavez Ravine) in Ohio and they have Pecola. The Breedloves internalize their outward ugliness by acting out ugly lives filled with drunkenness, anger and violence.
The Breedlove’s survive on confrontation where Cholly’s drinking sets the family mood. The unhappy Pauline’s ugly child (Pecola) typifies the family dynamic. Pecola escapes the ugliness of her world through her Mary Jane books and her white, blond, blue-eyed doll. If only see had blue eyes, all the world would like her. Even in Black America, circa 1941, white, blond and blue eyes marked the essence of beauty while the shade of “blackness” determined your status in the community where the lighter skinned a Black person is the more beautiful that person is perceived to be.
Claudia and Frieda help Pecola overcome her self hatred by befriending the sensitive 11 year old. We see a shift in perception when the light-skinned Maureen Peal (Noelle Hardy) arrives in the neighborhood. All the girls look for a flaw in the ‘beautiful’ light-skinned girl in a effort to bring her down to their level.
The Bluest Eye chugs along with too much narrative at times but its tender moments aptly demonstrate the devastation of peer group pressure, societal norms and arbitrary standards for beauty can be devastating on an impressionable girl. This is a powerful coming of age story that should be seen by all young girls. Alana Arenas’s Pecola is splendid while Monifa M. Days’ Frieda and Libya V. Pugh’s Claudia are terrific.
This production will move to The New Victory Theater off Broadway from November 3 – 19, 2006 as part of their programming for teens and young adults at the 199-seat Duke on 42nd Street Theater.
Recommended
Tom Williams
Tom99@chicagocritic.com for comments
Talk Theatre in Chicago podcast
Date Reviewed: October 7, 2006
Jeff Recommended
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