Shadow Theatre Company tried staging a Pulitzer winner, even won awards for doing so – and almost no one came. So who’s to blame it now for targeting a considerably lower common denominator – and drawing packed houses?
“Four Queens – No Trump,” written and directed by Ted Lange (Isaac the bartender on “The Love Boat”) is extraordinary for what it says and for who says it – four 40-plus black women. It is ordinary in most every other way.
Shadow’s two most recent titles, “Waitin’ 2 End Hell” and “Four Queens,” are outrageous domestic comedies featuring contemporary black characters. They are charming but profane. Both emphasize punchlines over plot. Both lean too much on mere observational or anecdotal comedy. And both make an inevitable dramatic turn into the same social ailment in pursuit of unearned weight.
Yet their enormous appeal to their audiences is undeniable: Black audiences don’t see characters and stories like these on any other stage. “Four Queens” played to an appreciative crowd that punctuated the show thoughout with genuine guffaws, “hallelujahs” and “you got that right, sisters.”
You will see better writing and tighter direction at other theaters – and not get anything close to the same kind of audience investment in return. When you find, reach and move your audience – that’s effective theater, period.
“Four Queens” is about four women who meet on Fridays to play the card game bid whist. The four women represent the four queens: Spoiled rich girl Jocena (Simone St. John) is the diamond; Edna (Adrienne Martin-Fullwood), a divorcée looking for romance, is the heart; Maude (Ghandia Johnson) is the proud black woman, the spade; socialite Deola (Emily M. Bates) is the host, the club.
The characters are a hoot (Deola is a dog-grooming psychic), but their personal lives inevitably become larger than the game. And in this regard, let’s just say our “Love Boat” star eventually goes overboard.
But as actresses go, Lange’s queens are all aces. Bates brings down the house dancing to Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye as she sets up her card table. Martin-Fullwood exudes warmth and St. John is simply a knockout. Johnson is a “Survivor Thailand” alum, and despite being saddled with expletives, this novice shows real potential to cross over from reality TV to the stage.
But there are “critics concerns” to point out here that to this audience likely amount to a house of cards. Among them: The play is at its funniest when the game is in progress; otherwise the dialogue is strained and momentum grinds to a halt, especially in a second act that relies too heavily on confessional, pace-killing monologues.
The women talk about an unseen friend who eventually dies, but this gives nothing away because it means nothing to the story. And when the talk gets particularly blue, I wondered if this is how women really talk about sex – or how a man fantasizes women might talk about sex.
As a director, it’s nearly impossible to effectively stage a story with four women sitting around a card table because that eliminates sightlines. The most dramatic reveal involves one woman taking off her sunglasses, and half the audience can’t see it. The list goes on.
But who cares when audiences walk out charmed, energized and thankful that a theater company has told them a story they can claim as their own? One completely idiosyncratic to their culture? In card parlance, that fact cannot be underbid.
Theater critic John Moore can be reached at 303-820-1056 or jmoore@denverpost.com.
“Four Queens -No Trump” | ** 1/2 RATING
COMEDY|Shadow Theatre Company, 1420 Ogden St.|Written and directed by Ted Lange|Starring Emily M. Bates, Ghandia Johnson, Adrienne Martin-Fullwood, Simone St. John and Kurt Soderstrom| THROUGH JUNE 25|8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays|2 hours and 20 minutes|$25|303-837-9355
