The title of Kia Corthron's new play may not sound all that refreshing to some, but critic Charles Isherwood found it appealing enough to review the play in the New York Times.
I might add that the title sounds most appealing to me.
It's not very often that I write about water plays. In fact, the closest I've come is a brief mention of the musical comedy, Urinetown: The Musical, in an 8 February 2010 post. Corthron's play is no musical comedy.
The production has its own blog.
You can imagine that snide reviewers will have a field day with the title and subject matter. One reviewer said "...it came up dry." Cute. And Isherwood proves to be no exception - how about his first paragraph:
If words were water, the drought problems so lengthily discussed in the new play by Kia Corthron, “A Cool Dip in the Barren Saharan Crick,” would evaporate pretty quickly. The title alone would suffice for a sponge bath. The subject of water actually consumes a large portion of the dialogue in this venturesome but disjointed drama about a young African man studying theology and ecology, and the American family that harbors him during his college years.
Ready for more?
Abebe (William Jackson Harper), the idealistic central character, continually spouts dire prophecies and dismaying statistics about abusive water policy the world over, like a spigot that cannot be shut off. He rails against the World Bank's dam-building ambitions back in his home country, Ethiopia. He reveals that while a person in the United Kingdom uses 31 gallons of water a day, an American splashes through 151.
Did you know that in Cambodia the start of the rainy season brings the overflowing of the Tonle Sap tributary of the Mekong River, which is actually a good thing? Or that in 1999 officials in Cochabamba, Bolivia, handed over control of the public’s water to private investors??
All these liquid factoids, and many more, are dispensed in the course of Ms. Corthron’s unwieldy drama, which also meditates on the spiritual significance of H2O in the baptismal rite and the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina. Eventually “A Cool Dip,” which opened on Sunday night at Playwrights Horizons, begins to feels like a cross between a Tom Stoppard play and a water slide.
Isherwood's bottom line:
Ms. Corthron can write lively, spiky and funny dialogue and create reasonably lifelike characters. Abebe in particular is compellingly drawn, endearing and exasperating in equal measures. But “A Cool Dip” wanders without focus through so many different dramatic byways that it never generates any dramatic pulse. Pickle’s emotional problems, H. J.’s spiritual regeneration, the tragic story of Tay, Abebe’s own trials in Africa — all are lengthily discussed but minimally dramatized.
But I do like the review's final paragraph:
The passage most charged with real feeling is a second-act scene that finds Abebe heatedly confronting H. J.’s former husband, Tich (Keith Eric Chappelle), over the dining table, both men rising to hurl bitter words at each other as their passions are aroused. The subject of their angry dispute? Tap water.
Nothing like a good row over tap water. Obviously, Isherwood is not a WaterWonk who has debated the merits of tap water vs. bottled water or water markets.
The play is off-Broadway and will close 11 April 2010. If I were in the Big Apple I'd catch a performance. But I'm not a critic.
Thanks to Dorian Roffe-Hammond for sending me news of the review.
"A critic is someone who knows the way but can't drive the car." -- Kenneth Tynan
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