Reviews of the 1988 Production

Commenting on the 1988 Crossroads Theater production, Ernest Albrecht of the Central New Jersey Home News [New Brunswick] was not particularly positive, calling it “over long” and “slowly plotted” and saying it “seems to want to be about something else altogether.” He thought “the evening moves along, at a very slow and deliberate pace,” arguing that the play’s plodding emphasis on romance meant that it had “wandered quite far afield from the feminist point of view.” In all, he wrote, “the play turns out to be a rather charming love story.” He found “something irresistible about Janie’s young man Tea Cake, played by Kevin Jackson,” asserting that “more than any other major character, certainly more than Janie who tends to be rather gloomy and downtrodden all night long, Tea Cake is filled with life and energy.” This character, he claimed, brought “excitement and energy to a play that like its central character had become slow and lethargic.” However, he felt that to get to Tea Cake “we have to endure, like Janie, all those years of disillusionment.” Albrecht regretted that “to help span the many years that must be covered before the playwright is ready to introduce Tea Cake, a narrator must occasionally insinuate herself into the picture,” using “self-consciously poetic prose” in order to “fill in the narrative gaps.” Albrecht felt that aside from Jackson as Tea Cake, “the liveliest and most appealing performances” came from the actors playing “secondary characters,” whereas “Denise Nicholas as Janie is trapped by the flatness of the character and the stuffy poetics foisted on her.” He admonished that “some judicious cutting would strengthen the play’s point of view and give it greater vitality.”

Albrecht also wished that the play had focused on deeper meanings and probing social commentary. He noted “numerous potential themes,” including “feminism, animal magnetism, love and, of course, black independence.” He regretted that because the playwright’s efforts to cover the plot of a full-length novel, she had had “to borrow a technique that is almost exclusively the tool of the novelist”—a narrator—suggesting that “few are the plays that have successfully employed this device,” commenting that Thornton Wilder’s “‘Our Town’ may be the exception that proves the rule.” Albrecht continued that “although the playwright here has tried to use the device dramatically by giving the female narrator a specific character,” he felt that “the words placed in this character’s mouth little resemble the sort of speech we associate with real people.” He called the narrator “self-consciously poetic” and felt that “rather than helping to speed the play from one event to another, [she] slows it down with the sort of ruminations and observations that would be far more welcome and comfortable in a novel.” Albrecht also felt that Rattner had “not been able to fashion a fully three-dimensional persona for the leading character. In fact, the character hardly gets to say very much, and we are impatient to hear more from her.” He argued that the

Albrecht further added that

Albrecht concluded by asserting that “before ‘To Gleam It Around, To Show My Shine’ can be more of a play, it needs to be less” than it presently was.

Simon Saltzman reviewed the play for the Daily Record [Morristown, NJ] under a headline reading “black woman’s journey is paved with poetry” (I.18). He called the work a “skillful adaptation” of Their Eyes—one with “exhilarating resonance” and “lyrical integrity.” Saltzman did perceive some weak points but stated that if “the Crossroads Theater hasn’t yet ironed out some of [the play’s] structural weaknesses, the beautifully staged production . . . is as revelatory a picture” of a “picaresque time as it is an entertaining homage to a rarely heralded folk culture.”

He said the play could “also be applauded for its almost slavish but decidedly delectable use of rural southern black dialect” and its “abundance of folkloric detail” as well as for its “unabashedly romantic thrust.” Salzman said the production was “paved with a poetry and a people that are hard to forget” and praised the “cast of 11, some of whom are called upon to double,” assuring readers that they are “more than up to the often hilarious dialogue, imagery and behavior.” He admired the work for giving the audience “the chance to hear, as opposed to reading, the rhythmic expressiveness and the metaphoric richness of colloquial black speech,” adding that when such speech was “entrusted to such excellent actors” it very nicely succeeded. He called the production “as admirable for its poetic illusions as for its well-rooted sense of reality,” and he praised the production for being “especially bright and witty where comical physicality comes into play. In particular,” he wrote, “a mock flirtation involving a pair of amusingly ardent general store habitues and the object of their affection is a rib-tickling delight.” Saltzman did feel that “some judicious pruning” would benefit “the especially protracted and melodramatic second act (including an unnecessarily long funeral),” suggesting that after such cuts the play would “show its shine to even better advantage.”

Alvin Klein, in the New York Times, also praised the production, claiming it remained “true to the author’s distinctive rhythms and rural dialect.” He applauded Rattner for “transpos[ing] descriptive passages or third-person narration into stageworthy dialogue” that he described as “so pure and lyrical, it positively sings and pierces the heart,” adding that “out of an unutterably beautiful book, a luminous play has evolved.” Writing that “through the device of flashback, and including some narration, about 25 years in the life of Janie Mae Crawford pass by,” Klein extolled not only the dramatic devices but also the script’s phrasing, asserting that “Ms. Rattner knows just where to put the words to make one gasp.” He called Denise Nichols, as Janie, “confoundingly radiant” and praised her both as “the incarnation of a woman who unfailingly speaks her mind” and as a “girl who ‘found a jewel down inside herself’” and “‘wanted to walk where people could see her and gleam it around.’” Klein wondered whether any “breathing man in the theater” would “not be smitten by her,” or whether any woman could “fail to find affirmation in the force of Ms. Nicholas’s presence—and Janie’s sheer existence.”

Klein also enthusiastically praised the supporting cast, stating that, “headed by Novella Nelson in a glowing performance as Pheoby, Janie’s lifelong confidante,” these ten actors are “altogether fine, funny and true.” He wrote that “Rick Khan’s direction evokes the aura of a small Southern town, with striking tableaux of people lazing, passing the time, sitting around on porches, gossiping, fanning themselves and simply being.” Klein did think that some “structural flaws” needed fixing, especially in “a second act that bogs down after an overly long first,” but he argued that

Reviews of the 2012 Production

In 2012, a revised version of Rattner’s play was staged in Baltimore at that city’s CenterStage Theater. In a lukewarm review, Brent Englar, in Broadway World Baltimore, wrote that “if the opening night audience at CENTERSTAGE is any indication, my response to Gleam . . . is well in the minority.” He continued: “I can understand people’s enthusiasm for the play; I can appreciate the labor of love that brought it to life . . . but at the end of the evening and throughout, I was not much moved.” He did add that, “to Rattner’s credit, she doesn’t fashion her play entirely out of Hurston’s poetry,” writing that “her characters speak the heightened language of literature, but—with the exception of stretches of narration—the words sound organic to the people, and the actors for the most part inhabit them.” He praised Christiana Clark’s Janie, calling the actress “particularly mesmerizing, striking a rare balance between grace and power, between youthful joy and soul-hardening experience” and suggesting that “with her slender figure, full voice, thick hair, and strong arms, Clark’s Janie reflects all things to men.” Englar also praised the ways Axel Avin, Jr. portrayed Jody, claiming he had an appropriately “big voice” and “preening walk,” and saying “we see immediately why Janie is drawn to him, and he to her.” Nevertheless, Englar felt that “as Jody ages he becomes increasingly a caricature” and that “Rattner gives him little to do but sag beneath his massive ego and pick fights with Janie and the townsfolk.” According to Englar, Avin brought little to these scenes “until Jody’s heartrending death, for me the play’s emotional center.” For that reason, Englar thought that “the second act, in which Janie meets Tea Cake and follows him to the swamps, feels like an anti-climax.” He characterized Brooks Edward Brantly’s Tea Cake as “more charming than charismatic,” though he did say that “he flashes glints of the danger that shall doom him. As with Jody,” however, Englar felt that this “character begins to lose his dimensions—Tea Cake seems at times like Janie’s dream of love rather than a man of flesh and blood,” perhaps because “we don’t spend enough time with anyone” to know the characters well. Englar noted that the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God abounds with action and poetry, and although he asserted that “Rattner works . . . hard to preserve both, her script becomes a series of episodes strung together by Pheoby’s lyrical voice-overs.” He added that although “Stephanie Berry delivers these lines with conviction, Pheoby the character has a very different voice than Pheoby the narrator,” who is “essentially a stand-in for Hurston.” Unfortunately, he considered the narration “ultimately distracting.”

Englar did praise Thomas Jefferson Byrd for being “hilarious as Janie’s first husband, Logan Killicks, an unabashed caricature,” but he felt that “Byrd could do more to differentiate Killicks from Pheoby’s kind husband, Sam, whom he also plays.” He continued that “the cast is rounded out by Erik LaRay Harvey, Tonia M. Jackson, Celeste Jones, Gavin Lawrence, and Jaime Lincoln Smith, each of whom,” he said, “plays multiple roles with commendable energy, forming a kind of folk chorus around the leads.” He extensively praised the production’s appearance, calling the costumer’s vibrant designs” a “continual feast for the eyes, as is the set,” with its “poignant vista of scrubland and small-town life.” He called the decision to fill “the proscenium arch with an array of farming and domestic tools . . . breathtaking,” although he also thought that “occasionally the large space works against and diminishes McClinton’s intimate staging.” Englar concluded by calling Gleam

Tim Smith, in the Baltimore Sun, also gave this production of Gleam another mostly positive review, claiming that although it was “not entirely fulfilling” it still conveyed “the heart of the matter.” Smith thought that “although the Center Stage revival of the play could use a more persuasive anchor in the cast, the production provides an engaging theatrical experience.” He acknowledged that “any saga is hard to wrestle into shape for the stage (or for film),” and he felt that ultimately “Rattner’s distillation ends up with a little more incident than insight.” He also warned audiences that “Janie’s journey, ripe with theatrical possibilities, is told in the language of poor African Americans,” noting that “that dialect made some readers uncomfortable with Hurston’s book years ago” and adding that “it still does.” He felt that “people may feel even queasier today about hearing such dialect, given the legacy of cruelly stereotyped figures in old movies.”

However, Smith argued, “the transfer to theater reinforces the ring of truth, and the rich poetic nuance in the language . . . helped earn Hurston’s novel classic status,” and adding that “the words often take on a musical quality in the Center Stage production, especially in the warming voice of Stephanie Berry, as Janie’s friend, Pheoby.” Smith also felt that the “country sayings and colloquialisms frequently go beyond the quaint to the touching” and that the script featured “a good deal of down-home humor.” He thought this humor “doesn’t come so much from characters trying to be funny” as from the “delicious ways some of them fancy up a point.” Smith felt, however, that “Christiana Clark, for all of her fine abilities, offers a one-dimensional portrayal of Janie,” maintaining “the same basic volume and deliberate tone of speech, the same way of moving, even when the action moves by flashback to Janie’s teen years.” Smith also suggested that “Clark never reveals enough of the light within Janie. She can certainly be affecting—the final dialogue with Pheoby is beautifully done, for example—but it is hard not to want more personality, more subtlety, more shine.” In contrast, Smith highly praised Axel Avin, Jr., for his portrayal of Jody Starks, admiring Avin’s “dynamic work” as “the would-be knight who has no use for ‘puny humans playing ’round de toes of time’” and who “‘pours honor’ all over Janie without remembering to add love.” Smith also praised Brooks Edward Brantly for the way he “easily conveys the sensual charm of Tea Cake, who turns Janie’s world upside down,” adding that “it’s a kinetic, multi-layered performance.” Finally, Smith assured readers that “all of the supporting players bring abundant flair to the stage, forming a tightly matched ensemble.”

Debbie Minter Jackson, in DC Theatre Scene, penned a more consistently positive review, stating that the production “hits a glorious stride” and particularly praising director Marion McClinton. Jackson said McClinton showed “a particular sensibility for the sound, rhythm and cadence of the piece” and said she “never lets it feel like stock archival footage, but instead, brings it to life.” She also thought “the production’s great casting of the two female leads adds appeal and charm, with Christiana Clark as Janie and [with] Stephanie Berry playing two roles,” both “as the all-knowing and helpful narrator who adds insights throughout and as Janie’s trusted friend, Pheoby.” Jackson claimed that “McClinton’s steady reliable pace provides enough space for the actors to delve into their characters and bring an invigorating liveliness to the earthy dialog,” thereby “showcas[ing] Hurston’s gifts of words, expressions and vernacular.” She also wrote that “most of the scene changes bustle along, with characters adding crates and items as needed for transition with only a slight lagging of several beats in the second act.”

Jackson felt that the audience’s “time is well spent as the story unfolds around Janie’s journey,” exclaiming,

Jackson wrote that “Christiana Clark as Janie brings a solid and powerful physicality to her character,” who “could work a mule, plow a field or tend the acres of crops” but who also “just as easily shows a tender and dreamy approach to life.” Jackson claimed that “Clark’s deep vocal resonance brings out the lyrical beauty of the lines, making them sing, and even shout, when needed,” adding that Clark “captures every nuance of Janie’s emotional journey.” Of Janie’s tumultuous relationship with Tea Cake, Jackson gushed that “Clark depicts these pivotal moments beautifully, bringing a wide-eyed excitement to each new encounter” and stating that “she’s a wonder to behold.” Jackson also hailed Stephanie Berry as Pheoby, claiming she “narrates with an easy approach and manner.” She praised Axel Avin Jr.’s Jody Starks for exhibiting a “a magnetic strong appeal” and Thomas Jefferson Byrd for “bring[ing] a colorfully seasoned presence to his characters.” Less enthusiastic, however, was her description of the actor playing another of the main male leads. She considered Brooks Edward Brantly “an acceptable Tea Cake” but wrote that “he is simply outmatched when Clark lights up the stage.”

Jackson did admire the production’s design choices. She said she could not

Jackson ended by asserting that this “shimmering” production, “packed with Hurston’s folksy humor and lyrical language” in the play’s “third airing in nearly 25 years,” was “as significant as it is timeless.”

Writing in the Washington Post, Nelson Pressley offered another positive review. He much preferred the Center Stage production to the recent televised adaptation of the novel, commending the play for offering “an elegant but not over-sanitized treatment” of the book’s language in ways the TV version had failed to present. Although he felt that the play rode “on a certain degree of exaggeration,” he praised the director, designers, and actors, claiming that “they know what they’re doing here.” Pressley called the staging visually “spare but crisp as a storybook” and offered special praise of the set. “Poorly done,” he wrote, “the design could come off as Pottery Barn kitsch. Instead, it sets the stage for tall tales and heightened acting, led especially by Axel Avin Jr. and Brooks Edward Brantly.” Pressley called Brantly “a charmer as Tea Cake,” saying he “and Christiana Clark’s Janie ease into each other wonderfully as the characters meet in Janie’s store; they have a formality that adds a lovely tension to the budding romance.” Although Pressley felt that “Clark’s performance grows declamatory now and then,” he wrote that “she mainly stays in tune with the slow-burning soul of Janie’s long, adventurous trip, which puts a painful kick in the tale’s tragic climax.” Referring to the minor characters, he closed by writing that “McClinton’s ensemble makes the various confidantes, gossips and flirts funny and bright, so it seems right when a character declares that she feels enlarged after hearing Janie’s saga.”

Mike Guiliano, writing positively about the play in The Columbia Flier, a publication of the Baltimore Sun, suggested that the Center Stage production was “at its strongest when it immerses us in . . . black folk culture. Hurston,” he wrote, “had a great ear for dialect and it’s reflected here in phrasing that speaks to an older America.” Guiliano felt that although “the plot spends a lot of time documenting Janie’s marital misadventures, it’s really grounded in woman-to-woman friendships that amount to the sharing of survival tactics.” He said “playwright Rattner always manages to hold our attention as we’re shown various chapters from Janie’s life.” In Guiliano’s opinion, however, what “truly holds our attention throughout ‘Gleam’ is the long-lasting bond between Janie and Pheoby.” He felt that even “though Clark takes a while to warm up and fully inhabit the role of Janie, the actor eventually becomes emotionally compelling,” and he added that “Berry conveys Pheoby’s perceptive observations with such assurance that the actor ensures we’re along for the narrative ride.” Although he argued that the “large and lively supporting cast under director Marion McClinton tends to play its roles broadly rather than going for nuance,” he felt that this “extroverted style generally works well in a play that feels like a boisterous series of folk tales.” He concluded that although “there are inert stretches in which there isn’t much dramatic momentum, the lively acting keeps us engaged. The folkloric vigor in ‘Gleam,’” Guiliano wrote, is “given a thematically supportive backdrop by David Gallo’s rustic set design, which is mostly comprised of wood platforms and Spanish moss-draped tree trunks, all “framed by a proscenium arch that resembles a barn wall covered with farm tools.” Like other reviewers, Guiliano found the set immediately compelling.

Amanda Guntheron, in an even more positive review, this one for the Maryland Theatre Guide, called the production both “strong” and “moving” and claimed its “audiences are treated to a powerful experience.” She admitted, however, that “like all shows not set in modern times where the dialect has shifted to a time, place, and culture of the past, Gleam is not without its challenges.” She considered the experience

Nonetheless, Guntheron praised director Marion McClinton for bringing “a unique staging to this production—ensuring that the actors make use of the vast space.” She also hailed set designer David Gallo and his choice to create “a tiered outdoors setting with porch steps, large trees against the back drop, and stone stoops.” She thought “McClinton strives to create full use of the sprawling stage” by “having each of his actors committed in their movements rather than wandering aimlessly,” and she called “the opening scene . . . picturesque—we don’t yet know the characters or their story but each person on the stage is placed in a space and utilizes it well.”

She particularly praised lighting designer Michael Wangen and sound designers Rob Milburn and Michael Bodeen, admiring the way “special effects” were “funneled through simple sounds and lights.” She applauded the designers for creating “intense moments throughout the show,” adding that “the one that most easily comes to mind is the storm late in Act II.” Guntheron claimed that although storms are easy “to create on stage,” with “a few claps of thunder, a few flashing lights to imitate lightning,”

“The show itself,” Guntheron asserted, “tells a powerful story, with emotions running high throughout most of the production.” However, she felt that “there are times when the actors plateau at this peak of heightened emotion when perhaps they ought to pull back to create a more dynamic” effect, adding that “we see this most in Janie (Christiana Clark) and Jody (Axel Avin Jr.),” whose interactions sometimes “lack the build in emotion and tension that one would expect from such heightened scenes.” Guntheron wrote that “rather than gradually increasing volume and intensity during their fights, they start off at the top, leaving them nowhere to build to,” an effect Guntheron found “a little disappointing. That is not to say,” she interjected, “that their emotional outbursts, especially Janie’s, were not thoroughly heartfelt and extremely intense.” In fact, she praised Christiana Clark for playing a “very dynamic character,” adding that “the best thing about her performance is how her physicality is an extension of her expressive nature.” She stated that Clark often “has anguish and anger, passion and confusion written all over her face, crying out through her voice at times,” with the intense emotion “then extended into her body as her arms reach out as if they could tough the sky.” She also praised Avin Jr.’s Jody, saying he “starts off as a charismatic charmer but delves quickly into a man possessed by power” and claiming that

She noted that “Brantly as Teacake has a similar approach to his character but rather” than seeming “boisterous and commanding he’s young and fun loving,” adding that “his scene-stealing moment is during the storm in Act II where the fear resonates across his face and is reflected in his voice.” She felt, however, that “both actors interact well with Clark” and that both “present intimate loving gestures to her when the script calls for it.” Guntheron also extensively praised the supporting cast, urging readers not to “miss Pheoby (Obie Award winner Stephanie Berry),” adding that “while she may seem like just the narrator,” the intensity she brings to “this character is incredible.” Guntheron claimed that Berry “is engaged in her telling and engages the audience with lively eyes and a kind voice, almost as if the story were her own. The most impressive thing about her performance,” Guntheron continued, “is that she is often on stage, somewhere hidden against the backdrop, simply watching the show as a mother does her children play,” but adding that “she is focused and never idles as she is watching.” In addition, Guntheron stated that when Berry “does interact with Clark’s character as a part of the story she listens intently” responds intently “to all that is said.” Guntheron concluded by calling Gleam a “dynamic work, compelling, and filled with emotion, wonderful design and performances,” asserting that it was “well worth the trip to Centerstage.” She awarded the production four stars out of a possible five.

Conclusion

Almost all the reviews of Rattner’s play surveyed here found much to praise about the work. Some of the reviews, in fact, were very strong indeed. Why, then, has the play been performed so infrequently? Part of the problem may be that it has, apparently, never been issued in print. No reference to a book publication can be found in Worldcat.org, nor does one appear in the Library of Congress catalog, in Google Books, in Archive.org, or at Bookfinder.com. Any enterprising director who might want to revive the work would, it seems, have a tough time tracking down the script to read. This seems unfortunate, especially since the track record of the play onstage is not unimpressive. Readers and theater audiences would both benefit if the play were more easily available.

Works Cited