Review by Shirley Lorraine –
Santa Paula Theater Center is offering a hard look at reality with its current production of American Son by Christopher Demos-Brown. Directed by the capable hands and mind of Taylor Kasch, American Son provides an emotional, searing ride into the dark world of assumption, rush to judgement and prejudice.
Presented without intermission, this 90-minute offering follows an anguished mother and estranged father whose son has been arrested in the wee hours of the morning. The couple is mixed – mother is black, father is white. The son (never seen) is biracial.
Author Demos-Brown delivers a hard-hitting slam to the Miami police department in this scenario. Given no information for hours, Mother Kendra (Elektra Cohen) becomes increasingly anxious and understandably angry when given nothing but platitudes. When white father Scott (Ron Feltner) arrives, the green officer Larkin (Jacob Trapp) offers nuggets of information, coffee, and becomes helpful, if even slightly.
The racial bias is obvious as Kendra and Officer Larkin miscommunicate spectacularly. The audience feels the frustrations build as she is repeatedly stonewalled. It appears that the son, Jamal, was in the wrong place at the wrong time, with the wrong people. That is no reason to withhold basic information as what happened, when, where, but, citing “protocol,” Kendra is given nothing to assuage her understandable worry.
Eventually the morning duty officer, Lieutenant John Stokes (Stan) appears and continues to give little to the parents. He’s seen similar scenarios before and has little patience for the early morning histrionics. The ultimate news he delivers is not at all unexpected but nevertheless devastating. Stokes’ seasoned apathy shows yet another avenue of complacency that is an unmistakable result of an ongoing issue. The statement is that lives are changed in an instant and it’s just part of how the world works. Sad, but true.
The author offers no apology for highlighting these inequities. They simply are stated as facts of reality. The audience is gripped by the sheer frustration the parents feel heightened by the fact that they are dealing with their own marital challenges at the same time. It’s all just too much, especially in the middle of the night. The anger and outrage build to a boiling point.
The play gives no new information to the audience – it appears to be nothing more than a statement of things that need to change. There’s no argument there. The actors give solid performances across the board, although were sometimes a challenge to hear in more calm moments when voices were low.
The play gives the audience many discussion points to ponder. Is there anything that can be done to tilt the scales of justice back to even? Have they ever been even? Can facts override prejudices and assumptions? I, for one, hope it’s possible.
American Son continues Fridays and Saturdays at 8 pm, Sunday matinees at 2:30 pm through September 28. www.santapaulatheatercenter.org or email sptcboxoffice@gmail.com; (805) 525-4645. Content Advisory.
