Ameriville: If We Had a Hammer

Back from "Ameriville" at Round House Theatre, a moderately populated Sunday matinee.

I can't easily describe this production - it's sung-through, woven with narrative and dance, but you can't exactly call it a light opera. It is built on the voices of Katrina Hurricane victims/rebuilders.



The four performers (members of the Universes Theater Company) open with a chanting/stomping ode to hammering, kicking off the production with the motif of building. This sets the tone of hope for the 100-minute, no-intermission mutli-voiced "rant" on everything that's wrong with America. They weave the many frayed threads of stories told by mothers, fathers, vets, sons and daughters searching for their parents, barbers and beauticians, stand-up comics.

The stories move well beyond the Katrina disaster and its long-term repercussions to address systemic inequities and institutionalized bigotries.

Theatrically, it was much more entertaining than that sounds. Four strong, textured voices, harmonizing through diversity; lighting and projections bringing static imagery to life; and the dance, stomping out the dimensions of conveyed reality in four corners, collapsing and expanding the limited space into new tempest-tossed worlds.

The four performers/creators stayed for an audience Q&A and confessed what wouldn't be hard to guess - that they don't always "preach to the converted" as they had just done in a liberal Montgomery County theater and that on several occasions they have watched their audiences react with open hostility. (I was angry, and I'm a Democrat; but I think I was angry for the reasons the production wanted me to be - I doubt many Republicans would stick it out.) Though it's disconcerting to hear that the actors on stage are observing their audiences, it's human and understandable, especially when the audience behavior can itself be theatrical.

If I'd been brave and raised my hand, I would have complimented the creators for providing the solution to the problems they sang about, though it was subtle and metaphorical. It was the hammer. If there are problems in the world, you don't solve them by moaning about it. You do what all survivors do: build.

Ameriville, Round House Theatre, Bethesda, MD
Directed by Chay Yew
Written, created, and performed by Universes:
Steven Sapp
Mildred Ruiz-Sapp
Gamal A. Chasten
William Ruiz