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Austin360 blogs > Austin Arts: Seeing Things > Archives > 2009 > January > 11 > Entry
Review: ‘Delta Dandi’
Some playwriting needs to be rolled around in actors’ mouths.
Sharon Bridgforth’s writing needs, even relishes, bodies.
Bridgforth’s newest work ‘Delta Dandi,’ in its premiere Saturday at the Long Center, has a roundness and thickness to it. The layers of language move and merge with song and dance as the actors conjure mostly momentary characters in the creation of a poetic landscape.
Bridgforth designed the play with the tone poems of African American musicians such as Mary Lou Williams in mind. The result is a performance that feels like a series of poems held together by a loose sense of place: a hot bayou rich with juke joints and simmering collard greens. From this place arises “Delta Dandi’s” funniest character, Honey Pot, a seductively wild pianist Bridgforth describes as “the kind of woman who will steal your girlfriend.”
The ensemble gives full-bodied attention to the humorous sensuality, aided by choreographer Baraka de Soleil, who also dances in the production.
But bodies break and tear in Bridgforth’s bayou, ripped apart by racism’s violence. Florinda Bryant, who generally seems to be “Delta Dandi’s” lead character, shudders with sadness, chest sinking, chin dropping. Yet in the face of lynchings and random violence, the actors tap defiance in their stance. The female chorus evokes women warriors: delivering many lines with feet spread, knees bent, pelvises sinking.
Children speak back — almost spit back — at racial trauma. Azure Osborne-Lee holds one shoulder back, pumping it as she yells at the unseen white man who beat her younger brother. And then there is Helga Davis, whose bold, deep, slipping/sliding voice proves the perfect compatriot to Bridgforth’s language. Davis can touch deep pain, but she also gives quick, mischievous glances over her shoulder, reminding the audience that she always retains control—and a sense of humor.
Clare Croft is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
‘Delta Dandi’ performed Jan. 9 and 10 at the Long Center.
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