Dark continent

Hole in the Dark satirizes slavery’s legacy

Like a hand grenade painted deceptively harmless colors, Hilly Hicks Jr.’s A Hole in the Dark comes rolling into the midst of a national conversation about the legacy of slavery.

As political journals and activists alike argue sweeping points — should the U.S. formally apologize or pay reparations for slavery? How do you put a price tag on mass enslavement? — Hicks’ scathing satire explodes preconceptions about white guilt and responsibility. Having its world premiere at Horizon Theatre, A Hole in the Dark is a real find, perfectly meeting the goals of the playhouse’s New South for the New Century Festival. The young African-American playwright takes a slightly screwy, white, suburban family and sinks them into a story that’s purely the stuff of William Faulkner, while being unexpectedly and outrageously funny all the way through.

The Rosehues live in a tract house on a cul-de-sac in an unnamed Northern state, and they’re all a bit exaggerated. Brittle, acerbic mother Miranda (Jill Jane Clements) is festooned with bandages from an attempt to cook, while blustering father Desmond (Gene Ruyle) contemplates lawsuits and lost newspapers. Their children include perky “good” daughter Beatrix (Cheri Christian) and profane radical feminist Francine (Susie Grimley), prone to fiery speeches about how her gorgeous hair is an instrument of oppression.

We gradually glean that the Rosehues have a strained relationship with the African-American family next door, the Andersons. Papa Anderson is a former employee of Desmond’s business rival, while studly son “Baby” is an object of lust for voyeuristic Beatrix. The Rosehue’s racial attitudes are cast in a new light when aimless son Bartholomew (Dan Triandiflou) returns from drifting around the South. Driven by the guilt of the privileged, Bart has researched the Rosehue family and learned that their ancestors owned 240 slaves on a Virginia plantation. “Well, we’re good now!” Miranda retorts.

Shortly after this revelation, a freak mishap befalls the family, and suddenly Beatrix finds herself at the plantation. While Hicks’ themes are always serious, his politically incorrect sense of humor can be worthy of Blazing Saddles. When Beatrix learns that slave woman Yippee (played by actor Ray Ford) lives on the plantation where she toils, the 20th-century teen exclaims, “It must be so convenient to work from home! Do you freelance?”

The antebellum figures include randy landowner (Clements dressed as a Southern “colonel”) and his frigid, addle-minded wife (Grimley, wearing the thickest eyeglasses you’ve ever seen). When the wife suspects Yippee of pilfering her tiara, she exclaims, “Our property is stealing our property!” Act Two catches up with the Rosehues a year after the accident, but the play zigzags back and forth in time, moving from modern absurdities to historical horrors with remarkable confidence.

A Hole in the Dark owes a little to Caryl Churchill’s Cloud Nine, which also freely mixed race, gender and period, with that play leaping from colonial Africa to contemporary London. One of Hicks’ characters is anguished by racial inequities to the point of actually changing color, being played by a different actor in the second half.

Having an actress play both the perverse plantation paterfamilias and the modern suburban hostess is an incisive stroke, indicating the ugly heritage underneath the appearance of propriety. But it wouldn’t work if Clements weren’t so effective at both roles, with Miranda proving expert at withering put-downs, while the landowner comes across like Ross Perot on a double-dose of Viagra.

Clearly A Hole in the Dark’s roles and actions are heightened and exaggerated, with Grimley and Triandiflou both giving funny turns as liberals with misplaced passions. Grimley manages some hilarious physical comedy in the second act, as her politics lead her to increasingly extreme behavior. But Ruyle’s overcooked Desmond doesn’t match up, as if he’s in “The Honeymooners” while the rest of the cast is doing Christopher Durang. His accent isn’t quite identifiable: It could be Scandinavian (Desmond happens to be 14th in line to the Norwegian throne) but sounds more Italian.

Hicks’ script has many funny throwaway lines, as when Desmond, bemoaning his missing newspapers, complains, “I don’t know what murder trial to celebrate!” But he and director John Lawler don’t trivialize the play’s underlying messages, such as how history has a way of catching up to people, that suppressed memories can make you crazy and that racial tensions aren’t easily glossed over.

A Hole in the Dark plays through July 23 at Horizon Theatre, 1083 Austin Ave. at Euclid Avenue, with performances at 8 p.m. Wed.-Fri., 8:30 p.m. Sat. and 5 p.m. Sun. $16-$25. 404-584-7450.??