Mariah Brown is not a play that can please a wide range of audiences. Those who are used to big explosions, raunchy sex scenes and hollow protagonists will find no pleasure in this one-woman play out of Florida. Instead, Brown offers a satisfying historical and emotional view of a Bahamian migrant who pioneered Key West’s Coconut Grove in the early 1880s.
That’s right, Shakespeare In Paradise presents yet another one-man show from the United States, following last year’s “Paul Robeson” and 2009’s “Zora”. I might also add that audiences loved those performances. So it is no small wonder that “Mariah Brown” quietly pleases audiences this lap. I say quietly because Brown is no showstopper about a suspected communist or the great Zora Neale Hurston, but rather, focuses on a mammy — a good natured servant — in search of a better life.
This is where Brown shines, as Laverne Cuzzocrea (Mariah Brown) transplants audiences back to the early 1880s and delivers one of the most memorable performances I’ve seen in any recent play. Cuzzocrea breaks down her performance with direct contact with the audience and exerting raw emotion. Her performance is quiet yet boisterous.
Central to the story was Brown’s hope and fortitude in learning to read and write. There is such a similarity here with Alice Walker’s “The Color Purple”. Learning to read is intrinsically linked with education and social awareness and this proves true as Brown warns her daughters of the ‘killings’ occurring in Florida.
She also finds an appreciation of poetry, especially the works of Walt Whitman and Shakespeare. Brown’s love for words, letters, reading and writing is ironically opposed to the blindness that her husband suffers. It is almost as if the playwright weakens the patriarch to truly reveal the strength that Brown possess.
Perhaps the most important theme of the play is community development. Brown was a pioneer, building the first home in Coconut Grove and persuading others to join her settlement. Here she shines not only as a mammy archetype, but also as a new archetype, earth mother. Brown cares for her community, especially her boss in the Peacock Inn who helps her to read. These elements, in my opinion, made the script fantastic.
There were no physically technical aspects to the play: no music, lights or fancy robots. It was simple. Cuzzocrea wore a traditional dress fitting that of a servant. For the most part, this worked well for the play, as the simplicity of the dress stayed in line with the atmosphere of the performance and the script. The greatest alien element to the play was the venue — The Historical Society — that fits nicely with the historical aspects of the play.
I honestly I have no qualms with the play. It was the right length, proved to be highly educational and it followed the three unities of playwriting; time, place and action. It didn’t hurt that Cuzzocrea was fantastic as Brown. I mean she had the audience.
Writer and director Sandra Riley first staged Mariah Brown in 2003 and followed with two additional performances in 2004 and 2007.
This was the first time Mariah Brown was staged in The Bahamas.
This review first appeared in The Nassau Guardian on October 10th 2011
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