Miami-born, and internationally produced, playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney has been enthusiastically endorsed locally by GableStage’s artistic director Joseph Adler. The Coral Gables company has presented four of McCraney’s scripts — two original works and two adaptations of Shakespeare — including the current Choir Boy, the writer’s most naturalistic, accessible and, arguably, most personal drama so far.
Set in the rarified world of a faith-based prep school for African-American boys, the play focusses on the five diverse members of the school’s award-winning a cappella choir. Foremost among them is Pharus Jonathan Young (charismatic Din Griffin), as intelligent as he is talented, traits which earned him the position of choir leader, even though his leadership skills are wanting.
And he is flamboyantly, unapologetically gay, evident from the opening scene in which he sings the school’s hymn solo, which elicits an unnerving cry of “Sissy!” from an unseen fellow student. For a quintet that relies on close-knit harmony in performance, a closer look reveals a group that is anything but harmonious.
Caught in the middle, as their mediator and disciplinarian is their headmaster (wily James Randolph), whose job is complicated by the fact that his nephew Bobby (Melvin Cox) is Pharus’s chief antagonist. Then there is Junior (Vlad Dorson), Bobby’s toadying sidekick; David (Samuel Enmund), who aspires to the ministry, but his shaky grades put his scholarship in jeopardy; and Anthony (Datus Puryear), an athlete who has agreed to room with Pharus after everyone else has shunned him.
All five actors playing the choir members are making their GableStage debuts, all impressively so, a credit to their abilities and further proof of Adler’s skill at casting young performers and drawing strong, honest work from them. Their résumés show experience in musical theater and they certainly each sing well, a necessary talent here since they frequently break into song, both mid-scene and as between scene transitions. Often the chosen hymns relate to the scenes they grew out of, but occasionally, they seem like unnecessary musical interludes.
Choir Boy follows a year at Charles R. Drew Prep School, from one commencement to the next. There are plenty of incidents, conflicts and tensions along the day, but the most significant event — the closest the play comes to plot — is the arrival of Mr. Pendleton (Peter Haig), a retired teacher brought back to coach the boys in the art of critical thinking. A former civil rights activist, Pendleton is white, but his skin color is less of an obstacle than his inability to relate to students today.
You could consider Choir Boy a mystery — Who uttered the rude comment at commencement? Who is gay besides Pharus? Who will not make it through the school year at Drew — but it is more a slice of life studded with social messages. And further proof that McCraney is a playwright with an enormously promising future.
CHOIR BOY, GableStage at The Biltmore Hotel, 1200 Anastasia Ave., Coral Gables. Through Sunday. Tickets: $52 – $55. Call:305-445-1119.