by Jenn McKee

Posted: Jan. 09, 2015 at 4:45 p.m.

In Robert Lawrence Nelson’s play “Sweet Pea’s Mama” – set near the end of Martin Luther King’s life, and now having its world premiere at Detroit Repertory Theatre – a white Southern woman (Abigail) gives a photo of her grown son to her longtime black maid (Coralee), saying, “For your album.” Yet when Coralee’s husband and 16 year old son come up in a conversation, Abigail can’t think of their names without help. This dynamic – Abigail’s unspoken assumption that her family matters, while Coralee’s does not – boils just beneath the surface throughout “Sweet Pea’s Mama,” directed by Barbara Busby.

And while you might assume that the play’s title refers to Abigail (Emily Rose Merrell), since Sweet Pea is the nickname of her developmentally disabled grown son Georgie (Aaron Kottke), it actually refers to Coralee (Jenaya Jones Reynolds). For when it became apparent, early in Georgie’s life, that he was impaired, Abigail withdrew from him, clinging instead to her other son, Sonny (Kottke), while Coralee took Georgie under her wing.

At the play’s start, Sonny is away at college, while Georgie is meandering through his days with Coralee. When MLK’s assassination is reported on television, Georgie flees the house in a confused panic – an act that ultimately changes everything. If this synopsis sounds vague, it’s largely because Nelson’s script lacks a central dramatic question to drive the story and provide momentum. “Sweet Pea’s Mama” moseys through its sequence of scenes in the same way kindhearted Georgie marks time in his childhood home: without a clear, defined sense of purpose or direction.

So it’s ultimately a “slice of life” family portrait play – which might have worked, too, had the characters felt like living, breathing, complex human beings, rather than familiar types we’ve seen in endless movies, TV shows, and books (entitled, bigoted Southern white woman; the code-switching maid who must compromise some of her dignity each day to keep her job; her son, representing the next generation, who pushes back against old racial strictures, etc.). Plus, Nelson’s hand is too-visible at times, such as when Coralee’s son Jerome (Chris Jakob) suddenly, extensively waxes poetic about a baseball game in a monologue, and when the absence of Abigail’s husband seems more a matter of artistic convenience than narrative sense.

Yet the best moments in Detroit Rep’s production of “Sweet Pea’s Mama” are the most intense ones: when Coralee loses her temper with Jerome, and sharply instructs him on how he must operate in the white world in order to survive, you can’t help but immediately reflect on Michael Brown, Eric Garner and other unarmed young black men who lost their lives this past year. And you get the sense that Reynolds, in delivering those words, is thinking of them, too. Plus, Merrell hits just the right notes of obliviousness when asking Coralee, “You know that feeling? When you just want something new?”

Harry Wetzel designed the set, consisting of Abigail’s pale-palette kitchen, while Thomas Schraeder designed the lights. Costume designer Judy Dery found era-appropriate hats and dresses for Abigail (and the perfect dresses for reluctant recipient Coralee to throw away), and Burr Huntington designed the show’s sound.

So everyone involved has done their job – but even so, the play never quite manages to grab you by the lapels and ask hard questions. It simply congratulates us for now being able to see our racial past for all its flaws. And for me, that’s not enough.

SHOW DETAILS:
“Sweet Pea’s Mama”
Detroit Repertory Theatre
13103 Woodrow Wilson, Detroit, MI 48238
8:30 p.m. Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Feb. 5, 6, 12, 13, 19, 20, 26, 27, Mar. 5, 6, 12, 13
3 & 8:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 7, 14, 21, 28, Mar. 7, 14
2 & 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 8, 15, 22, Mar. 1, 8, 15
$17 for advance sales; $20 for door sales
313-868-1347
www.detroitreptheatre.com