For the first time in more than a year, I almost felt like I was back watching a live performance in a theater Friday night. It was the opening night screening of a video version of Dominique Morisseau’s powerful and involving 2017 play “Pipeline,” produced by the Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe.
Yes, I was among a small mask-wearing crowd seated in two-person pods in the theater’s parking lot on a warm spring night. And yes, we were watching a video of stage performances. But there is something so gripping about the way director L. Peter Callendar has filmed the stage play – as a theatrical performance – that you might forget the surroundings and feel like you’re actually inside that theater, breathing the same air as the actors.
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I have seen a handful of fun shows presented live outdoors in the last year, and I’ve seen my share of video recorded plays, most of which left me unengaged.
Maybe I’ve just been starved for drama for too long, but “Pipeline” feels different as it tells the story of Nya, an inner city schoolteacher battling for the future of her son, a bright student at an elite boarding school where his inner rage about the world might derail the opportunities his parents want him to have.
In just 90 minutes we discover a lot about the characters and the world in scenes that are alternately heartwarming and heartbreaking (sometimes both simultaneously) with touches of humor. You feel like cheering the bravado of the wonderful Emilia Sargent, as Nya’s colleague Laurie, who has just returned to school after a parent attacked her with a knife. This is her playground, and no one is going to stop her, but you also sense the nervousness in her words.
One brief scenes provides a full sense of what life is like in this school, and why Nya and her ex-husband, Xavier, decided to send their son to private school.
As Nya, Renata Eastlick portrays the essence of a woman burdened by just about everything in the world. She’s worried about Omari’s potential expulsion. She is still in love with Xavier, feels the danger lurking in her school and is struggling to teach Gwendolyn Brooks’ poetry without it all crashing in on her.
Nya’s relationship with Omari is paramount but not easy. As played by Whitney in possibly his strongest local role to date, he is a headstrong young man rebelling against hypocrisy. Omari has clearly listened to what he has been taught and he tries to consider every potential ramification of his words or actions. That can be too much, even for a mature teenager. His father, played by Joel P.E. King, has the cocky air of someone who thinks he has the answers, but his usual response is to just step away.
The most engaging relationship is between Omari and Jasmine, a fellow student played with a radiant strength and defiance by Emerald Rose Sullivan, who is not afraid to challenge authority, even when her efforts may seem misguided.
Morisseau has crafted beautifully written scenes that are believably played by Callender’s cast, which also includes Isaac Esau Gay as a security guard who takes a personal interest in the teachers.
Callender and his cast performed the play inside the WBTT theater without an audience with the actors kept at safe distances. The fine videography by Bill Wagy gives you an intimate an up-close look, as if he is capturing everywhere you want to look. Adam Spencer’s scenic design, Adrienne Pitts’s costumes, Joseph Oshry’s lighting and Jay Poppe’s video projections all add to the story both on stage and on video.
I am sorry the pandemic makes it impossible to experience these performances live. But the video being screened outdoors through Thursday will be available for home streaming Friday through May 23.
‘Pipeline’
By Dominique Morisseau. Directed by L. Peter Calennder. Reviewed Friday, April 23, Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe, outdoor screenings, 1012 N. Orange Ave., Sarasota. Through Thursday. Home streaming is available May 1-23. Tickets are $20. 941-366-1505; westcoastblacktheatre.org
Jay Handelman, arts editor and theater critic, has been an editor and writer at the Sarasota Herald-Tribune since 1984. Read more of his arts and entertainment stories. And please support local journalism by subscribing to the Herald-Tribune.
