WASHINGTON — It isn’t enough to say that Robert O’Hara addresses the politics of gender, race, religion and sexuality all in one heart-wrenching evening of painfully awake theater. And it isn’t enough to say O’Hara weaves in and out of time and space, from the glittery opening of “Gone with the Wind” on a sparkling night in 1939 Atlanta to the library of a detention camp in Nazi Berlin, to explain his jigsaw puzzle of a plot.
No, it’s best to leave it all up to the experience of O’Hara’s latest script, “Antebellum,” a dark, twisting, belching ogre of a play that rivals even the best and brightest Shakespeare.
Oh, it’s a scandalous and artful little work that’s receiving its world premiere at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, and a prickly, disagreeable play at that. It’s hard to warm up to a plot so contrived that it keeps your head spinning with even the most minute of details. And it’s a challenge to follow the unseemly thread of similarity between a lonely plantation wife — who happens to be married to a Jew — and a black, homosexual cabaret star blazing up the footlights in an alternately appreciative and volatile Germany.
And did I mention it’s a love story?
Add to all of that the notion that every speck of dialogue demands to be noticed, as though every line proffers a clue into what’s really happening on stage in O’Hara’s cruel drama, and a few scenes with explicit nudity and other mature adult themes courtesy of director Chay Yew, and you could be overwhelmed by such intense and unexpected theater that titillates.
But if you can manage to temper your patience with a little good, old-fashioned curiosity, and appreciate the fine developments bubbling up in O’Hara’s potent drama, then believe me, Scarlett, the rewards are unbelievably bountiful.
Crafted from the same playwright who gave us a reimagined, tongue-in-cheek romp through gruesome historical events with “Insurrection: Holding History,” “Antebellum” toys with the darker side of human nature in ways both devilish and decadent — and deceiving.
O’Hara’s script flashes through cogent political arguments with sharp, poetic commentary that is as fascinating as it is horrifying. It’s incredibly rich stuff to recite, and Yew’s astute cast delivers a handful of strong, spitfire performances.
With a fresh hint of the comedic here and there, doors fly open and slam closed all across the stage — but “Antebellum” is the polar opposite of farce. It’s difficult terrain to tread, yet Jenna Sokolowski fares well in high seriocomic waters alongside a vacillating and vulnerable Jessica Frances Dukes. And Carlton Byrd’s heartbreaking captive elicits raw, authentic emotion as he reveals the core of O’Hara’s mystery.
There’s a lot to love and hate in such a convoluted story, but if there is one fatal flaw to O’Hara’s design, it is in the pragmatic and inevitable way he wraps up his tale. In fact, you could say it’s all a bit overbaked, overthought, overwrought, overdone.
But with its preceding two hours of perfectly profound melodrama, frankly, my dear …
If you go
“Antebellum”
Where: Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, 641 D St. NW
When: 8 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday; 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Sunday
Info: $38 to $60; 202-393-3939; woollymammoth.net
