by Carolyn Hayes Harmer

Posted: March 22, 2015 at 3:00 p.m.

Playwright J.C. Lee’s recent drama, “Luce,” investigates how a single incident, or a sliver of information, can call into question everything parents thought they knew about their child. In the Michigan premiere production now at Meadow Brook Theatre, director Travis W. Walter hopes to send the viewer reeling into gray areas of cloudy intent and raw uncertainty.

The story revolves around ace high-school senior Luce (Leroy S. Graham), a young black man adopted ten years prior from war-torn Congo by non-black parents (Sarab Kamoo and Ron Williams). The teenaged Luce bears no resemblance to the child displaced on a new continent, who spoke no English and slept terrified under his bed for the first year. Instead, the Luce the viewer sees, a sought-after star athlete and model student, is said to be well adjusted, popular, and a leader among his peers.

However, when Luce writes a vaguely troubling school essay (the playwright dances around the subject matter, inserting the fear-mongering words “jihad” and “terrorist” to let inference run wild), his concerned teacher (Angela G. King) searches his locker as a precaution. What she finds is the subject of a parent-teacher conference that sets the play on its rocket trajectory into private hysteria. The heated scenes that follow examine the notions of privacy and authenticity, the role of parents and teachers in shaping young people, and the slippery nature of truth and trust.

Costume design by Liz Goodall is suggestive of affluent suburban normalcy, as is designer Brian Kessler’s set. To create scenes at home, at school, and in a coffee shop, Kessler has created a low, minimalist canvas for designer Reid G. Johnson’s differentiating lighting schemes. These everyday people and places, contrasted with the characters’ comfortable worldviews that are spiraling away, are loud reminders that such troubling family unrest could happen anywhere.

Walter and company are clearly aiming to be provocative, but also seem wary of being blatantly confrontational to the audience. Scene after scene, characters are upset without engaging in consequential conflict; instead, these primarily intellectual exchanges seem scrubbed clean of grit. In fact, the coarsest moment of the play (and also its most affecting) is a monologue: Luce’s classmate Stephanie (Dana Kreitz) offers a harrowing glimpse into the high school social scene in its real, unvarnished form.

Despite its insistence that there can never be satisfactory answers to any of its many questions, the production is continually baiting the audience to solve the mystery of Luce. Is he really as good as he’s perceived? Could he possibly be as bad as they fear? Graham’s inscrutably wooden performance is minutely calibrated to keep viewers guessing. For those who enjoy picking apart a story after the fact or digging into pockets of doubt, “Luce” is packed with such disquieting conversation starters.

Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes (no intermission)

SHOW DETAILS:
Luce
Meadow Brook Theatre
207 Wilson Hall, Oakland University in Rochester
March 18 – April 12; check website for exact dates and times
Price: $26-$41
248-377-3300
www.www.mbtheatre.com