Yale Rep delivers an urban epic in 'Splash'

Teen pregnancy, inner city conditions, race, the environment--these controversial topics are usually left to newspaper editorials or the stock rhetoric of a campaigning politician. But in the Yale Repertory Theater's newest offering, Splash Hatch on the E Going Down, playwright Kia Corthron weaves these and other contemporary social concerns into her sympathetic portrayal of a young black girl living in Harlem. The play centers on a teenage writer-to-be, Thyme, and her teenage husband Erry. The newlyweds are living with Thyme's parents while they await the birth of their first child.

Fifteen-year-old Thyme's enthusiastic thirst for knowledge and obsession with the earth's environmental problems parallel her growing excitement and interest in her changing body and the progression of her pregnancy. Thyme's head for numbers makes her a constant source of statistics on everything from the size of her developing fetus to the high rate of asthma in Harlem. When Erry, trying to support his young wife and secure health benefits for their unborn baby, takes a job demolishing old buildings filled with lead paint and asbestos, Thyme's concerns about the environment hit frighteningly close to home.

Critics have called Kia Corthron a black, feminist David Mamet, and there is some validity to this claim. Corthron's use of the sounds and rhythms of the spoken word, especially in Thyme's sprawling monologues, is as conscious as Mamet's, and simultaneously jars and attracts the listener. Corthron gives her characters life and vivacity without drawing too heavily on tired stereotypes; the character of Thyme is especially unique in this respect. The relationships between characters, most notably between Thyme and Erry, ring true without following expected patterns. For the most part, Corthron resists the tendency to undermine her story with unrealistic extremes of either perfect bliss or devastating despair.

In all fairness, Corthron does a better job with basic existence than she does with specific dramatic events. The only awkward moments in Corthron's script come at times of violent action, where the dialogue wears a bit thin and occasionally seems forced.

Thyme is played effectively, if a bit manically, by Margaret Kemp. Kemp is at her best during the last scenes of the play, and makes a difficult character accessible to the audience with her enthusiasm. Akili Prince is wonderful as the frustrated but devoted young husband Erry. Exciting to watch, Prince is full of energy and careful to expose the complexities buried beneath Erry's deceptively simple surface.

Cherita A. Armstrong is quite effective as Thyme's equally pregnant best friend, Shanee-qua, and provides a necessary foil for Thyme's intellectual spirit. For the most part, Armstrong avoids falling into the stereotypical performance the role of Shaneequa could suggest. As Marjorie and Ollie, Thyme's supportive parents, Ami Brabson and David Toney handle their somewhat underdeveloped characters without difficulty, and Toney gives Ollie an endearing warmth toward his precocious daughter.

Thyme's desire to give birth to her baby in water rather than in a traditional hospital setting is a consistent theme throughout the play, informing the title's concept of a "splash hatch." This water motif is nicely echoed in Michael Yeargan's minimalist set design. Through the use of three large rectangular panels, Yeargan depicts a calm, vast seascape in varying shades of blue. In other scenes, Yeargan projects the red brick exterior of the crowded and dirty Harlem apartment buildings that make up Thyme's neighborhood onto these same panels. Clean geometric furniture and set pieces complete the picture, and a solitary window in the center panel allows the audience to observe the world through the eyes of Thyme's family. Stephen Straw-bridge's lighting is unobtrusive, and Katherine Beatrice Roth's costumes realistically place the production in its present day Harlem setting.

Although it has many comic moments, Splash Hatch on the E Going Down is not for the faint of heart. The play depicts one family's struggle, in the face of unavoidable obstacles, to provide an opportunity for its newest member to thrive, and the issues it examines are neither simple nor easily resolved. Whether or not the play is entirely realistic, the difficulties of its characters are both sensitively explored and worthy of exploration.

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