Lydia Diamond’s “Stick Fly” at Arena Stage is not aimed at any single target. It takes on race, sex, honesty, class, infidelity, wealth, self-respect and more. The result is a play that manages to be simultaneously funny and provocative, to have a primarily humorous exterior throughout, until its serious core is revealed at the end.
“Stick Fly” takes place in an exotic landscape not often viewed onstage: exclusive, upper-class black society, where prestigious schools and posh country clubs are the order of the day. In this play, the action takes place in the elegant summer home of Joe LeVay (Wendell Wright) on Martha’s Vineyard.
Into this idyllic setting, Joe’s elder son, Flip (Billy Eugene Jones), and younger son, Kent (Jason Dirden), come home for a visit, bringing their girlfriends. Kent’s fiancee, Taylor (Nikkole Salter), is a bright, straight-talking young woman. Flip’s girlfriend, Kimber (Rosie Benton), is also smart, also straightforward — and white.
Diamond writes well about conflict — between father and child, brother and brother, lover and lover — and much of the appeal of this play comes from seeing different patterns of conflict arise, mutate, disappear and reappear quickly. First Kent and his father tangle, then Flip and Kent, then Taylor and everyone else. And on the fireworks go, with characters forcing one another to air new and old secrets.
One of the figures caught in those conflicts is the wise-cracking daughter of the LeVays’ housekeeper, Cheryl (the delightful Amber Iman), who doesn’t care whom she insults. In her unique position as being part of but also apart from the Vineyard society, Cheryl’s critical voice is a unique and entertaining one.
If you go
‘Stick Fly’
Where: Arena Stage, 1800 S. Bell St., Arlington
When: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday, Sunday; 8 p.m. Thursday to Saturday; 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday
Info: $25 to $66; 202-488-3300; arenastage.org
Director Kenny Leon leads his talented cast into intriguing, staccato verbal duals and overlaps. And he keeps them in virtually nonstop motion, sailing smoothly around David Gallo’s impressive set, a living room with massive columns and a floor-to-ceiling wall of books. The fact that the set is curiously devoid of any reference to the nearby sea is a reminder of a central tenet of “Stick Fly”: that upscale lifestyle taken to the extreme can interfere with — and even obliterate — the basic elements of life.
