‘In the Red and Brown Water’

Marquette and UPROOTED Theatres’ In the Red and Brown Water is a triumph. Powerfully realistic in its themes and characters yet abstract and spiritual in its style, it is unlike anything seen before on the university’s stage.

The Yoruba pantheon of gods inspired the principal characters, and Tarell Alvin McCraney’s fantastically realistic dialogue drives home the message that these universal archetypes exist across time and place.

Under Marti Gobel’s direction, an exemplary cast of student and adult actors bring a neighborhood in the Louisiana projects to life. Alessandria Rhines is masterful as Oya, a young girl with a gift for running track. Offered a scholarship to State, she declines in order to spend time with her dying mother (Ericka Wade), and learns that the opportunity will not come again. The rest of the play deals with her struggle for fulfillment and her relationships with three men—the aggressive, strutting Shango (Oumi Abdulahi); sincere, work-a-day Ogun Size (Terry Lee Watkins Jr.); and sprightly, vivacious Elegba (Kevin Price).

Production values are grand and ritualistic. Drummer Lucky Diop sits on top of Madelyn Yee’s sprawling, graffitied set. Gobel’s costume plot puts all the characters in white and yellow, aptly suggesting both the everyday wear of a sweltering corner of the United States and the garb of West Africa, the spiritual heart of the show.

Diop’s musical contributions, in conjunction with narration and song by the chorus, underscore and drive the emotional arc of the story. Although Oya is the protagonist, this truly is a ballad of community. It is full of dreams and powerful symbols; from hopeful beginning to ambiguous, tragic end, the audience is immersed in the felt experience of communal life.

In the Red and Brown Water runs through Nov. 16 at the Helfaer Theatre, 525 N. 13th St. For tickets, call 414-288-7504 or visit diederich.marquette.edu.