Trouble the Water

The central conceit of Shepsu Aakhu’s new play—that black people are afraid of water, and have plenty of reason to be—is provocative in both the abstract and the current political moment. In the opening scene, we see African slaves being jettisoned off a ship, and then we’re fast-forwarded into a flooding New Orleans where trapped citizens without the resources to flee prepare to drown. The metaphor is killer, but despite Lisa Johnson-Willingham’s dynamic choreography (aqua-clad dancers create engulfing waves) and the multiple a capella gospel numbers, which are like being in a Virgin Megastore when the power comes back on after a blackout, Aakhu’s script doesn’t deliver on its excellent premise.

The thin scenes he strings together never let us get to know his characters in peril, but one senses direction might have fixed that (as it often has to in the growing trend of the nebulous collage play). Yet Nance’s actors are strangely expressionless and void of energy when playing out the action, almost the direct opposite of the volcanic life they bring to the choreo-poem musical numbers. It’s a strange contradiction that keeps Water on dry land.—Christopher Piatt