Playwright: Samm-Art Williams . At: Court Theatre, 5535 S. Ellis. Phone: 773-753-4472; $30-$60. Runs through: Dec. 12
The power of theatrical storytelling is on full display in Court Theatre's entrancing Home. Samm-Art Williams' 1979 drama utilizes just three actors, but this trio gets the opportunity to conjure up whole communities of characters.
Home is essentially all about Cephus Miles, who journeys from his North Carolina farmland home to cruel and cold New York City. But in telling the story of Cephus, Home makes an individual character's story into a near-universal one that not only touches upon the Great Migration of African-Americans to the urban north, but also of anyone who has been uprooted from his or her childhood home.
Director Ron OJ Parson and his cast weave a rich tapestry of American history between the 1950s to the 1970s, all thoroughly illuminating Williams' dramatic style of poetical commentary mixed with inner-monologues. And each of the actors gets and gives quite a compelling workout.
Kamal Angelo Bolden plays Cephus wonderfully, effectively conveying the hero's journey from a young man giddily hitting adolescence's milestones to bewildering at the inequities of the big city. Even with his hulking presence on stage, Bolden has a strong ability to show Cephus' essential goodness, vulnerabilities and perseverance no matter what the odds.
Ashley Honore and Tracey N. Bonner are respectively called Woman 1 and Woman 2 for simplicity's sake, since they tackle scores of characters both male and female who revolve around Cephus. Pulling add-on costumes from two onstage trunks ( designed by Rachel Laritz ) , Honore and Bonner convincingly and comically transform their personas over and over again to expert effect.
All this plays out on Jack Magaw's weathered and suggestive farmhouse set, which changes locale thanks to Heather Gilbert's focused and often-saturated color lighting design. Differing moods that get evoked include a city cocaine-induced rush done in harsh reds contrasting with the airy and light day of a hot North Carolinian summer.
If there's any criticism to dole out on Home, it's for the play itself which wraps itself up perhaps a little too neatly ( even if Williams does have Cephus comment on the others like him who didn't survive ) . But as a counter-intuitively programmed show that isn't holiday-themed, Court Theatre still serves up an entirely appropriate drama for the season.
Home truly is theater that can transport you, not only into the lives of its characters, but to a larger and more epic look at American history. Here the personal is truly representative of the social and political realities of so many people.