Zooman and The Sign

Zooman

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robert massimi <rmassimi99@gmail.com>

9:07 PM (2 minutes ago)

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Sometimes in life you come across someone who is unlike anyone you have ever met in your life. That was the feeling the audience had when they came across Zooman (Isaiah Joseph) at The Negro Ensemble Company in “Zooman and The Sign”.

Based on a true story, Charles Fuller (A Soldier’s Play) shows us the depths of depravity that has unfortunately engulfed much of our inner cities throughout the United States. While the play has a story-line of racial tension, we never see that here. Rather, it deals with people trying to survive a ghetto in Philadelphia. While many of the adults in this play hold down jobs… Ruben is a former boxer, now a bus driver; Emit works in Bellevue as a janitor. In fact, most of the people on the block of where Ruben and his estranged wife, Rachel live are all working. The area vacillates, if you will, from lower middle class area, to a ghetto. it is never really determined how bad the area where the Tate’s actually live,is. Yet the play is engrossing. A 12 year old girl, Jinny was shot and killed walking in the “mean streets” of Philly. Her death has no one talking about who did it,

In Fuller’s writing, he hits some spot on points about the ghettos. How areas that were once nice to live in, but have changed due to pat riots, shops closing and criminals that now rule the streets. Most of the residents want a peaceful, happy life where their children can get ahead. It is juxtaposed against people like Zooman who grew up hard, who have a very violent streak in them; who can kill at anytime for a no good reason.

In Ash Boswell (Ashlee Danielle) we get a really good dialogue as to why black areas are the way they are. She states that food stamps are the main reason why blacks are not motivated to succeed like other races. Jinny’s mother, Rachel (Constance Sadie Thompson) too gives a rational opinion of why the area has changed and she wants to move down Route 452 to a better location. While both of these actresses are very good, as is Joseph, the direction has a tendency to flutter throughout. Phyllis Yvonne Stickney leaves many of the actors in limbo. Ruben, the girls father, never reaches the emotional level of a morning father. As a former boxer, he only musters a sign above his door that accuses his neighbors of apathy towards the little girl that was brutally murdered.

In a modest, but effective set by Patrice Davidson, very good sound by Twan Howard and energetic lighting by Melody A. Beal, “Zooman and The Sign” is for the most part a powerful play. The play takes place in the 1980’s when America began to see a crack epidemic erupting. Inner cities crime began to explode and daily shootings were common place. The play never fully shows the gratuitous violence, rather only dabbles in it here.Even though Fuller never let’s the play fly with even more degenerative behavior, “Zooman” still hits some chords from within.

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