"Shotgun" at the Southern Rep

On Thursday night, after a lovely dinner at Eleven-79 (one of the best Italian restaurants in the city), I went with three of my four sisters -- all of the local ones, missing only my sister in Minnesota -- to the Southern Rep Theater in Canal Place to see the second part of a projected Katrina trilogy by local playwright John Biguenot. (The author's surname occasioned some discussion amongst the sisters on correct pronunciation; apparently Southenr rep is of two minds about it as well, since two different employees said it two different ways.)

The first play, "Rising Water," was set on a rooftop during the aftermath of Katrina, and ran to rave reviews. I did not see that play, but the other sisters did -- however, they could not agree on whether or not there had been actual water surrounding the rooftop set. Even if there were no real water, it seems clear that the play was so well written and so well acted that certain audience members went away with at least a memory of water.

"Shotgun" is set in December 2005, after the storm, and continues into several months of 2006. Beau (Rus Blackwell), a white man from Gentilly and Eugene, his surly PTSD son (played so well by young Alex Lemonier that I wanted to smack him for his rudeness and unrelenting bad behavior), come to rent half a one-bedroom shotgun house in Algiers from the owner, a black Creole woman named Mattie Godchaux (Donna Duplantier). Mattie's father, Dexter Godchaux (Lance Nichols), lost his home and all his belongings in the Lower Ninth Ward in the Flood, and has also lost his livelihood, since the machinist shop where he worked did not reopen after the Storm, and is now living with Mattie, sleeping on the couch in the living room.

Mattie is desperate to keep her house and is happy to find renters, and Beau is glad to find a place to live. But both Dex and Eugene are dubious about the arrangement. The old man wants to keep the boundaries between neighborhoods and the races that existed before the Storm. Eugene wants his whole life -- his dead mother, the house that flooded, his old school -- to go back to the way things were before. There's a fifth character, a black man from the neighborhood, Clarence Williams (Kenneth Brown, Jr.), who has known the Godchaux family a long time and is doing the "scuffle" in order to keep his head above water (metaphorically).

I can't say much more about the play without giving away key points, but I can tell you that the play is engaging and absorbing. Things are gotten "right" -- the way New Orleans folks really talk, how people were immediately after the Storm, the tangled feelings, and mixed-up neighborhoods. The actors are all believable and sink into their parts. It makes you laugh knowingly, nod your head, and even tear up occasionally.

I totally recommend you go see this play, and look for the other two plays in this trilogy.