"Lackawanna Blues"

"Lackawanna Blues" at MTC is a one man show written, directed and starring Rueben Santiago-Hudson. The shows nexus is based on his life and the people that he knew in Lackawanna, New York growing up there. The writer is passionate about this play and he gives it his all. Set in the backdrop of a once industrial building (looked like an old textile plant), Michael Carnahan gives his set a feel of a town that was once vibrant as Lackawanna once was. Santiago-Hudson never really tells us just what happened to his town, if anything. He is also not very clear in what years things happen in his life. He paints broad strokes about Jackie Robinson and the 1973 Supreme Court case on segregation. Other than a few mentions, however, he never really paints the picture of what was happening in America as he went along in this ninety minute intermission less play.

Before the show began, the audience was treated to classic blues; for the most part, the play continued on its "bluesy" genre. Supporting this mood was the deft lighting by Jen Schriever... the purples and oranges rang out wonderfully as actor and solo musician Junior Mack banged away trying to keep a soulful mood while Santiago-Hudson poured through his life story.

In acting out all the roles of the people who came upon his life, the imitation was always entertaining even if the characters he was portraying were not. Ol' Po' Carl, Nanny, Numb Finger Pete, Ricky, Freddie Cobbs, Norma, Sweet Tooth Sam were all engrossing characters and drew many laughs from the audience. Many of the others, however, were not funny nor interesting people and the show languished at times because of the uninspiring people he portrayed.

This play may have been better if the writer had continued on about Lackawanna as a town. He started out boastfully how in 1956 Lackawanna was a boom town... how Nanny went down South in her old Buick and took her relatives back North to work in the steel mills there. He stated how everyone had good jobs and money to spare but he never let us know if the people continued on with prosperity or not. It would have also been beneficial since he talked so much about "The Negro" to give the audience some sort of idea about what was going on with the people he grew up with and cared about.

Ruben Santiago-Hudson also missed the mark not talking in detail about his mother or father. He quickly mentions Bill but defers to Nanny always putting Bill in his place, this seemed like he was deferring on this part of his life. It seemed from what little we learned about Lackawanna that it was an exciting place to be: gambling, music halls, bad ass men, sexy woman and the occasional shooting and stabbing. Yet again, the writer only glazes over these points and more bent on belting out a harmonic tune without any rhyme or reason.

"Lackawanna Blues" would be a better show if we felt more pain from the emotion of the actor; we never fully feel his pain, his angst nor his regrets over anything of meaning. Why wasn't the feelings about Uncle Bill brought forth? When he went to Toronto, Canada for a visit he claimed how nice and clean Toronto was, but yet he never gives us a picture of what Lackawanna was like at that time. Nanny bought up several businesses as a younger woman and yet we don't know later on in her life what she had, if anything at all. The only thing we knew for sure in this play was how generous and caring Nanny was; other then the deep detail of Nanny we knew little about anything else.