This year’s presidential election will include first-time voters who might not remember Sept. 11, 2001. Before them, Generation X acquiesced to the end of history and a cultural milieu of slackers — but then came millennials. Ages 18 to 34, give or take, their world is social media and smartphones providing options without action.
Black-N-White Café, written and directed by KJ Melson and performed by the artefact theatre collective, dramatizes that predicament with provocative, if not a bit muddled, results. Eight hipsters, so the program declares, loiter in a coffee shop with political debates, social deconstruction and, ironically, rejecting of labels.
Outside there’s a protest rally of indiscriminate philosophy. Each individual —black, white, Native American, male, female — engages in talking points with the passion of youth.
There’s the hard-luck waitress (Mallory Kraus), the disenchanted owner (Josh Beasley), the sad hippie (Mandy Goodwin), the men playing cards (Gardy Gilbert, Jeremy Farley, Logan Kitchens and Owen Kresse) and a runaway with only a guitar to her name (Anna Stratford). They pontificate and sometimes scream their inability to effect change within a relatively straightforward narrative broken up by musical dance numbers and an omnipotent voice demanding they line up and step forward if certain standards are met.
Everyone is bringing his or her A-game and not shying away from playing the complexity of human existence. Yes, they’re spouting their positives and prejudices as in a political science essay, but Melson is wise to flip expectations, making the “nice” characters blurt out subtle but insidious beliefs while revealing nobility in even the most loud-mouthed, unlikable patrons. There’s also an easy camaraderie with this group, as they convey established friendships or fully realized personalities in just a few economical sound bites.
Unfortunately, the show tries to tackle too much. Perhaps that’s the point, and headline topics certainly lend urgency, but nothing has a chance to breathe. Trump, immigrants, blackness, poverty, war, inequality between the sexes — they’re all trotted out, ripped into and discarded. Maybe the idea is that there is no answer, but it’s hard to know whether the audience should admire this crowd for their articulation or question their conviction.
There’s also the problem, as always, of the venue. The OTR Community Church is a large space and already doesn’t provide the best acoustics. Combine that with diegetic noise from protesters outside and a concert at Washington Park, and it was often hard to make out the all-important dialogue.
This is a show to be admired and one that’s well-paced and engaging, although it ends a little suddenly. But perhaps that ambiguity is a commentary on an uncertain future for this generation.
This article appears in Jun 1-8, 2016.