In my estimation, Lynn Nottage is one of the premier playwrights of the era. Her work is sharp and sensitive. She is a master at blending character and theme, creating a slice of life that interests and entertains while it says something about humans and their experience.
“Crumbs from the Table of Joy” is one of her earliest works (1995). It lacks some of the polish and sturdy structure of more famous pieces, such as “Intimate Apparel,” “Ruined,” and “Sweat,” but it allows you to see Nottage in embryo and anticipate the riches to come.
“Crumbs” is about identity and individuality. It features five people who have had to discover or create a vision for themselves and cling to it in spite of obstacles, including the headiest — Jim Crow America and Nazi Germany.
The play centers on Ernestine (Enih Agwe), the teenage and older daughter of a man (Jamil A.C. Mangan) who loses his wife then relocates his family to 1950 Brooklyn because he thinks it is close to the person he regards as a philosophical and spiritual guide, Father Divine, who happens to be located in Philadelphia.
The well-acted, sincere Crossroads Theatre production of “Crumbs,” the title of which comes from a Langston Hughes poem, retains your interest in the nuclear Brooklyn family, Godfrey Crump and his daughters, Ernestine and Ermina (Gabriyèl Barlatier), but takes off exponentially when two woman who invade and influence their lives, particularly the girls’ aunt and sister of their late mother, Lily (the explosively riveting Cloteal L. Horne) and their father’s sudden second wife, a German refugee, Gerta (the unflappable, vocally gifted Lee Alexandra Harrington).
Lily and Gerta provide a needed bolster, because Godfrey is lost in his fascination with Father Divine, who remains off-stage but who dominates the cramped Crump apartment, a basement dwelling in the heart of a mixed-race Brooklyn neighborhood.
Godfrey adheres to the three “V’s” of Divine’s teachings — virtue, victory, and virginity.
He makes his daughters dress demurely, often in a style that brands them Southern newcomers to Brooklyn, and he writes hundreds of letters to Philadelphia to ask Divine how he should proceed in life.
Godfrey is decent but stilted. The loss of his wife and the care of his daughters weighs on him. He’s a responsible man, working diligently but for low wages at a local bakery, and one who wants to do what he can consider to be the right and proper thing, but he limits his and his daughters’ possibilities by his strict devotion to a doctrine that even its author bends a bit.
Godfrey’s luck is also not the best. On the day he is set to finally meet Father Divine, in a private session at the Brooklyn mission, the good prelate’s Duesenberg gets a flat tire outside of Trenton and scuttles the visit.
Nottage differs from her later plays by having Ernie narrate a lot of the situations and conditions by which her family lives. We hear her reporting, which is accurate, and her point of view, which is positive but tinged with questions and informed by obedience to her father’s authority that her younger sister, more open to the liveliness and liberality of Brooklyn, doesn’t always share.
The narration slows down “Crumbs from the Table of Joy.” Agwe tells Ernie’s story engagingly, and Nottage packs it with interesting, worthwhile sentiments, but someone speaking directly to an audience rarely substitutes for seeing situations played out in front of you.
Show, don’t tell, is a watchword of theater, and Crossroads’ “Crumbs from the Table of Joy” gets a lift when Nottage moves away from narration and more of the dramatic action takes place in front of us.
This happens when two women descend on the Crump house, their Aunt Lily, who thinks she should take some hand in raising her late sister’s daughters and who can also use some shelter even though her days are spent mostly in Harlem, where she is part of a group that actively seeks to improve the status of Black Americans, and Gerta, a German woman Godfrey meets on the subway and marries in a whirlwind weekend.
Lily and Gerta bring new attitudes and different energy to the Crump apartment. Lily wants nothing to do with Father Divine and teaches her nieces, by good and bad examples, how much freer life can be when one asserts herself individually and strays from the grip of Father Divine. Gerta adds a touch of European domesticity to the Crump home, preparing home-cooked meals, creating order and touches of beauty, and being grateful for what one has.
Lily and Gerta, who, thanks to Lily, do not get along, have different attitudes about what life should be. Lily is out talking to people and having a good time while trying to encourage steps to advance people in general and Black people in particular. She finds the Crump basement a convenient dump. Gerta, after suffering the deprivations of Germany, telling on her soul and psyche, finds the Crump apartment a lovely bit of luxury that just needs some sprucing and routine.
Ernestine is susceptible to the influences, is drawn to her aunt, and comes to see Gerta for who she is and accepts her. Ermina, who starts out as the rebellious pistol, becomes the more conventional daughter.
Nataki Garrett’s production for Crossroads emphasizes the important parts of Nottage’s script. Garrett and Agwe allow you to see the growth of Ernestine. The introductions of Lily and Gerta occur smoothly, so you accept both characters before, perhaps, the nuclear Crumps do.
The dominance then diminishment of Father Divine is handled well.
By the time you know Ernestine’s future, which is told in one last narrated speech, Garrett has placed Nottage’s family on the move, and you sense the difference that will come in the 1960s and beyond.
Enih Agwe builds Ernestine from being shy and tentative to being a young woman open to what she learns from Lily and Gerta and able to make a decision about what she wants to be.
“Crumbs from the Table of Joy” is about Ernestine’s development. Comparing the Ernestine who talks to us in quiet tones at the start and with confidence at the end shows how well Garrett and Agwe tell her story, which is one of many minority women who live at a time of historical change.
Jamil A.C. Mangan displays both Godfrey’s good intentions and confusion about the best way to live. He embodies fatherly love, especially in his daily surprise from the bakery, while showing Godfrey’s thrall to Father Divine.
Once Godfrey meets Gerta and breaks loose, Mangan does too, showing a fuller, happier man who can do better for his girls than when he was saddled by religion.
Cloteal L. Horne is a constant breath of life. Her Lily arrives like a storm, announcing she is moving in and not worrying about Godfrey’s approval of invitation.
Horne expresses Lily’s freedom, both of thought and action, in significant ways by taking full stage, stating Lily’s ideas firmly and directly without apology or doubt, and living the picture of an independent woman who eschews marriage and doesn’t want any encumbrances that might impede life as she chooses.
Lee Alexandra Harrington provides sun as Gerta. Her common sense and cheer are present from the beginning. So is some sense of spirit, though so much has been knocked out of her while trying to survive the Third Reich as a middle class Gentile not so much in fear for her life or safety but of starvation and lack of sanitation. Gerta stands for everyday domesticity, but Harrington gamely shows another side to her when she launches, unexpectedly, into a beautifully sung rendition of Marlene Dietrich’s standard, “Falling in Love Again.”
Horne and Harrington, by virtue of their talent and understanding of their characters, bring an uplift to Garrett’s production.
Until they appeared, that energy was provided by Gabriyèl Barlatier, whose Ermina is the spunky, independent little sister everyone craves, even though she requires patience to be around.
Before Agee’s Ernestine catches up, Barlatier’s Ermina thrives in the spirit of Brooklyn. She wants to shed her country ways and dress up like the girls she sees at school, girls that shun her because he has not yet shed enough of the South.
Barlatier has immediate stage presence and a canny knack for the perfect line delivery. I intend to keep an eye on her. I expect a major role in her future.
Nadir Bey’s set shows both the simplicity of the Crumps. Everything has a smack of second-hand taste but of decency. Garrett expands playing spaces well when necessary.
NIIAMAR’s costumes let us know who the characters are: Agwe and Barlatier, one wearing her dowdy clothes neat and prim, the other looking to give her outfits a touch of Brooklyn. Kathy Ruvuna’s sound design is pitched perfectly, as is evident when Harrington sings. Xavier Pierce’s lighting wins over some tricky scene changes..
Crumbs from the Table of Joy, Crossroads Theatre, New Brunswick Performing Arts Center, 11 Livingston Avenue, New Brunswick. Though Sunday, November 23. Showtimes are 7:30 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday, 2 p.m. Saturday, and 3 p.m. Sunday. $45 to $95. www.crossroadstheatrecompany.com or 732-745-8000.
