While Broadway theaters were shuttered and demonstrations erupted across the country protesting the killing of George Floyd, an African-American, by a white police officer, the industry underwent a reckoning to be more inclusive and diverse. As stages are slowly reopening, the number of productions written by African-Americans like Keenan Scott II’s Thoughts of a Colored Man and Douglas Lyons’s Chicken and Biscuits has increased above the usual token two or three per season. The latter play premiered at the Queens Theater in Feb. 2020, with a run cut short by COVID. Still, Chicken and Biscuits proves a familiar sitcom with touches of soap opera.
It’s a mostly funny show but too broad and melodramatic to leave a lasting impression. At two hours with no intermission, Chicken also feels overbaked. Lyons, an actor with Broadway credits, pens a feel-good family comedy-drama which has obvious comic tropes.
The Jenkins family of New Haven, Conn., are burying their beloved patriarch, a righteous and well-regarded minister. Of course, there are clashes between disparate siblings and couples, and deep, dark secrets ready to be exposed. Dignified Baneatta (Cleo King, skillfully suppressing conflicted emotions) spats with her flashy sister Beverly (a riotous and charismatic Ebony Marshall-Oliver). Baneatta’s daughter Simone (sharp Alana Raquel Bowers) is smarting over a break-up and takes it out on her gay brother Kenny (sturdy Devere Rogers), who has brought along his white Jewish boyfriend Logan (Michael Urie, way overplaying the character’s nervousness). Baneatta’s husband Reginald, the new pastor (the marvelous Norm Lewis, not given enough to do), just wants to maintain peace and hold the family together. Completing the company is Beverly’s self-centered teenage daughter La’Trice (Aigner Mizzelle, in a captivating comic turn) and an unexpected visitor Brianna (Natasha Yvette Williams, quietly real).
Director Zhailon Levingston has given this production a wildly broad staging, complete with musical stings and slow-motion action to emphasize the jokes. The gags can be fairly obvious and even wince-inducing (a clueless Logan says “Mazel Tov” instead of “Amen” during Reginald’s sermon). But there are also genuine laughs and honest limning of family connections. Mizzelle is particularly moving as the scrappy La’Trice. This character could have easily been played as a cartoonish brat, but Mizzelle shows her brashness is a shield for a deep neediness.
Williams has the most difficult part, that of the unknown intruder (but you can probably guess the reason for her visit if you’ve watched any TV or movies in the last 20 years). But she gives Brianna a solid center and self-knowledge. When she entered late in the play, it was refreshing to see a character without any comic schtick. Lewis, one of the bright light of musical theater, is reduced to supporting the flashier performances of King and Marshall-Oliver, but he does have a star-turn moment while delivering an emotional eulogy. Kudos also to Dede Ayite’s character-defining, joyously fashionable costumes.
Though there are tasty dishes in Chicken and Biscuits, the chefs lay on the comic sauce too thickly. But if that’s your taste, enjoy.
