Theatre review: Redbone Coonhound uses humour to dig at complexities of race, racism, relationships and more
The play by mixed-race married couple Amy Lee Lavoie and Omari Newton nips at the heart
Emerjade Simms (left) and Kwesi Ameyaw in Redbone Coonhound, 2022: set design by Kevin McAllister; costume design by CS Fergusson-Vaux; lighting design by Jonathan Kim (Chimerik 似不像). Photo by Moonrider Productions
The Arts Club Theatre Company presents Redbone Coonhound to October 30 at the Newmont Stage at the BMO Theatre Centre
“CHOO-CHOO MOTHERFUCKERS!” With that, actor Emerjade Simms introduces a modern-rapper version of American icon Harriet Tubman—an escaped slave who became a “conductor” on the Underground Railroad in the 1850s, leading hundreds of enslaved people to freedom—in Redbone Coonhound. With her glittery gun, gold multifinger ring, and dark sunglasses, Simms (who’s positively kick-ass in the role) blasts out royally entertaining rhymes like “Batten down your chariots, it’s fucking Harriet/Tubman is the scariest, bitch, you hilarious.” Inspired, a nearby white woman played by Nancy Kerr declares “I vow to live my life like a Black woman would… Except for the hard parts.”
The snippet is one of countless funny-not-funny moments in the play co-written by Amy Lee Lavoie (who is white) and her husband, Omari Newton (who is black), that is having its rolling world premiere first in Vancouver then in Toronto and Montreal. Redbone Coonhound stems from a real-life encounter in which the couple struck up a casual conversation with a white dog owner while out for a walk. The pup was paying particular attention to Newton—the interaction brilliantly illustrated here by lighting designer Jonathan Kim (Chimerik 似不像), who splashes a pattern of soft orange light on the floor that follows Mike (Jesse Lipscombe) wherever he goes.
Just as it did in real life for the playwrights, the term “redbone coonhound” triggers tense and uncomfortable conversations between Mike and his wife, Marissa (Emma Slipp). From there, the play unpeels layer after layer of the complexities of race, racism, relationships, identity, power, privilege, sexism, feminism, misogyny, justice, rights, hypocrisy, language, culture, love, and family. Yes, it’s a lot, but such complicated topics are all intricately and intimately interconnected in the characters’ lives. Redbone Coonhound successfully and meaningfully touches on each and every one of those subjects without ever coming across as preachy or self-righteous; rather, so many rapid-fire moments hit the heart hard, catch you and make you think while you’re laughing out loud.
An especially cringily hilarious scene unfolds when a set of white parents (Gerry Mackay and Nancy Kerr) are lamenting the impending marriage of their daughter to a white man. Their home is adorned with the kind of décor that Etsy would generalize as “African”—think bongo drums, tall vases, and what look like shields—while the mom struts around in a dashiki. The parents had wanted a black son-in-law, a “real” athlete in the family, not the cribbage-playing English lecturer with the pancake-flat ass. News from an Ancestry test leads to a celebratory dance party; you might find yourself replaying Kerr’s full-body moves in your mind anytime you need a laugh.
Lavoie and Newton’s script deftly uses the power of humour to bring extraordinarily difficult subjects to light, but Redbone Coonhound is hardly all hilarity. Mike struggles with the name of the dog breed throughout, the root terms bringing up conflicting emotions and so much deep-seated pain. A flash point has him get to the very core of why the words hurt so much. Lipscombe’s Mike is vulnerable yet so angry his body shakes; it’s a transfixing moment.
At the outset, Slipp’s Marissa comes across as a bit too reserved or restrained; however, the actor soon digs into her character’s own turbulent swirl of feelings and considerations, giving Marissa more emotional breadth and depth.
Kevin McAllister’s set is by turns Mike and Marissa’s apartment, a 1935-ish TV-show stage (echoing blackface and minstrelsy), a spacey 2030 universe where overt and covert racism have been (almost) completely cancelled, and more. Each vignette morphs into the next through a 180-degree rotation of the set upon which Chimerik 似不像’s Sammy Chien and Caroline MacCaull, the show’s co-projection directors, cast abstract visuals that are alternatingly dreamy and scrambled.
With references to George Floyd, Karens, Kim Crawford, Colin Kaepernick, and more, Redbone Coonhound will of course affect white and black viewers differently. Either way, it is likely the most fun you’ll have this year confronting terrible and terribly pervasive truths.
Gerry Mackay (left), Sebastien Archibald (centre, standing), Emma Slipp (centre), and Nancy Kerr in Redbone Coonhound, 2022: set design by Kevin McAllister; costume design by CS Fergusson-Vaux; lighting design by Jonathan Kim (Chimerik 似不像). Photo by Moonrider Productions
Related Articles
