‘The Bluest Eye’ makes best of cursory script

Cory Johnson
Contributing Writer

Is it so bad to be envious, to desire a world with the brighter hues and joy that is found with others? Such is the plight of Pecola Breedlove, the main concern of Lorain, Ohio in 1941 in “The Bluest Eye,” Lydia R. Diamond’s stage adaptation of Tony Morrison’s novel. Directed by April A. Jones, a 2009 MFA graduate of VCU, theatreVCU’s Main Stage production of “The Bluest Eye” is a technical triumph, with Jones’ directions artfully portraying a less-than-marvelous script.

Immediately upon walking into the theatre, the set immerses its audience in the town of Lorain: A platform and single light post set against a wooden store front and other raw wooden faces transports the play to the poverty-ridden slums of black Ohio in the 1940s.

Pecola Breedlove, played by fourth-year theatre performance major Crystal Johnson, is a poor 11-year-old, dark-skinned black girl with a marked lack of affection in her life. Marked as ugly since birth, she finds no affection from her drunken father or her hardworking mother, whom she calls Mrs. Breedlove. The only love Pecola knows is her “Dick and Jane” book, which teaches her she has to be white with blonde hair and blue eyes to have any true sense of being loved.

Johnson’s portrayal of Pecola is breathtaking as a sad young girl naïve to the ill temper of her world. Adapting the walk, talk, subtle mannerism and whines of a girl plagued by the idea that she isn’t good enough for the world, Johnson makes us believe Pecola’s idea that maybe if she looked different, she could be happy.

Her performance is only supported by the ensemble that helps recount her tragedy.

The story is told mostly in narration by two sisters, Frieda and Claudia MacTeer (second-year theatre performance major Brittney DeRizzio and third-year theatre performance major Olivia Luna, respectively). Being Pecola’s only friends, they were the only characters able to tell her story.

DeRizzio and Luna do a phenomenal job in their roles, with the narration running as a conversation between the two, imbuing the script with more tangible life. Their familial banter is as natural as that between any pair of siblings, tapping into childhood’s natural joy and helplessness.

Along with their narration and that of other characters, important scenes are acted out by the rest of the cast, as well as these two, causing some confusion in the script as to when narration starts and scenes end. But director Jones does a laudable job of separating the separation of prose and action with her clever staging, set development, and lighting – all three try and give clear moments of time, although still sometimes difficult to follow.

Though the play shines with brilliant acting (standout performances given by VCU graduate Katrinah Carol Lewis as Mama and theatre pedagogy graduate student Margarette Joyner as Mrs. Breedlove), intelligent and creative directing and a story that is gut-wrenchingly tragic at its center, the mass amounts of narration – beautiful to listen to – make this play lack the action and visual satisfaction to captivate a theatre audience. This production is technically fantastic and a great representation of a great novel, but a poorly adapted script makes even the best student acting and direction difficult to fully appreciate.