<bt>Barbara Weber sits partially concealed behind a partition, but the sound of her drumbeat transports the audience to the Caribbean island world on which the action in Eugene O'Neill's rarely produced "The Emperor Jones" takes place.
The beat of her drum is the heart beat of the production, driving its drama to ever-higher pitches of excitement until the resolution of the story, told in a single act of eight scenes in the small black-box Theatre II at Gunston Arts Center.
The production is the work of the American Century Theater, which specializes in giving audiences the opportunity to actually see rather than simply read (or read about) important works from the last 100 years on the stages of the United States. Rarely have they found one so seldom performed but so important, both in the history of the American theater and in the career of such an important playwright.
Eugene O'Neill wrote "The Emperor Jones" in 1920 and it was such a hit at the small off-Broadway house where it opened that it transferred to a full-sized Broadway theater despite some difficult hurdles it had to overcome.
For one thing, it was a strange amalgam of realism and the then-new expressionism. Audiences did not really know what to make of a play about a central character that seemed so strongly characterized in almost super-realistic strokes, but who goes through progressively less realistic experiences, obviously the creation of his own deteriorating imagination.
What was even more unusual, indeed unprecedented at the time, was the fact that the central character was a black man being portrayed not by a white actor in black-face, but by a black actor giving a powerful, compelling performance in a production featuring an integrated cast. Never before had Broadway had a black actor taking the lead in an integrated cast, and here was no servant but rather the emperor of the title.
The role was not that of an operetta-like emperor either but of a hardened, confident man with a violent criminal past — an escaped convict who had, through personal magnetism, strength of will and unscrupulous means, risen from a background as a Pullman porter to rule a kingdom. His rule was harsh and corrupt, however.
Therein lies part of the reason the play is hardly ever performed today. The absence of any redeeming personality traits in the central character raises real questions of negative racial stereotyping of a sort very different from the "Step'n Fetchit," "Little Black Sambo" or "Gone With The Wind"'s "Mammy" variety.
THE EIGHT SCENES of the play present the sequential disintegration of a proud man trapped in the collapse of everything he has created. Faced with a revolt, he quits his palace to flee the country with his ill-gotten gains.
He prides himself on being smart enough to have provided for just such an eventuality by staking out an escape route through the jungle and stashing needed supplies along the way.
His assurance is shaken when he discovers that the supplies have been removed. Then, when he loses his way in the darkness, his fears begin to shake his confidence with ever more disturbing hallucinations stimulated in part by the incessant beat of the drum that fills his ears.
These hallucinations bring on the other reservation concerning racism that has kept the play from frequent production in the last half century.
First he sees visions of his own history. He sees the crime that sent him to the chain gang from which he escaped in his earlier years. Then he sees the escape itself, accomplished by killing a guard.
Those personal memories soon yield to what could be termed racial memories, as the play turns more and more expressionistic. He sees his ancestors being sold at auction, then the slave ship that brought them to the western hemisphere, and finally he is reduced to reacting to the dangers of the jungle from whence they came.
The American Century Theater's Artistic Director maintains that the play is "a metaphor for all mankind, and not (a) racial slander." His company tries valiantly to justify that view with a production of strong theatrical values under the cogent direction of Ed Bishop.
The performance of Bus Howard as the Emperor is as strong and impressive as one could want, the supporting cast is excellent — with a particularly good portrayal of the one white man in the play by John Tweel — and there are some extraordinary visual moments, especially the vision of the slave ship involving six members of the ensemble in a choreographed specter set to the sound not only of the drum but of Keith Bell's exceptional soundscape of creaking ship's rigging and splashing waves.
Through it all is the beat of the drum which creates an all-encompassing atmosphere of impressive theatricality.
WHERE AND WHEN: "The Emperor Jones" plays Wednesday-Saturday at 8 p.m., with matinees at 2 p.m. on selected weekend days, at Theater II of the Gunston Arts Center, 2700 Lang St. Tickets are $18-$26. Call 703-553-8782 or log on to www.americancentury.org.
Brad Hathaway has covered theater in Virginia, Washington and Maryland as well as Broadway, and edits Potomac Stages, a Web site covering theater in the region (www.PotomacStages.com). He can be reached at Brad@PotomacStages.com.