A truly good play is one that puts society on trial, said Kenneth Tynan. If only for that reason, Tynan would have admired Breathe, Javon Johnson’s family play which just opened in a West Coast premiere at Greenway Court Theater.
Breathe, which was done at the Lark Theater in NYC fifteen years ago, opens in a prison cell shared by two teenaged killers, one black (Andre, played by Kamahl Naiqui), the other white (Casey, played by Dutch Hofstetter). The two young prisoners face off against each other, their hostility fueled by class, racial and personality differences. But they share a common fate: the prospect of spending a big part of their life behind bars. Then the playwright widens his focus to include Andre and Casey’s parents, who live in homes located on opposite sides of the stage (the ingenious set is by Max Oken). We soon learn that the two families live in a racially-divided Chicago. The Middletons, Isaac (John Marshall Jones) and Loretta (Lyn Michele Ross), reside on the south side; John and Ellen Fleming (Walter Cox and Carrie Madsen, respectively) on the north side. Like their incarcerated sons, the Middletons and Flemings may have their differences but are obliged by life to relate to each other on a deep, human level. Each of them has experienced the horror, shame and pain of being the parent of a youthful murderer. Each of them wonders where they went wrong, wonders why this has happened to them, good people who tried their best to raise a decent kid. Isaac and Loretta are working-class blacks (construction worker and social worker) who tried to set a good example for Andre, keep him off the violent streets of the south side. But when his new bike was stolen, the neighborhood code dictated that he go after the thief and exact revenge—which he did, unfortunately, with a gun. John is a cop; Loretta a corporate wage-slave. Why Casey pinches his father’s service revolver and turns it on some Mexican kid in the park is poorly motivated by the playwright; it’s one of the play’s many flaws (a fact, though, that doesn’t detract from the over-all worth of Breathe). What makes Johnson’s play work is its scope, passion and poetry (Andre, for example, has several hip-hop soliloquies that are brilliant and memorable in their own right). Subject matter is another of the play’s important qualities. “Why do we have to fight against our own children?” cries one of the parents in the play. The other questions that are asked about race and class, the criminal justice system and our pervasive gun culture, are ripped from today’s headlines. To go with its relevance, Breathe has a tragic dimension that goes back to the Greeks. There’s a lot of shouting here, a lot of repetitive confrontation scenes, but thanks to its strong cast and above all to its brave look at our violent, class-ridden, racially-stricken society, the play has worth and importance.
