We Were There: Theatre Powerhouses Deliver Toast

From April twenty-first through May tenth the Shiva house of The Public Theater transformed into the pre-riot jail cells of 1971’s Attica prison complete with bars, bunks and commissary stashes for Lemon Andersen’s Toast.  Upon entrance you are transported into the world of the larger-than-life, folklore heroes whose stories are the thing of myth and legend.  In these walls you meet the revolutionary Hard Rock (Hill Harper) and the patriarch Dolomite (Keith David), the men whose adverse itineraries set the stage for the uprising they are both frightened of and begging for. We watch these men search for brotherhood, respect, and a future outside their bars (both mental and physical) all while grappling with the personal flaws that landed them there.

Handcrafted and delivered flawlessly, Toast opens with Hard Rock asking the audience “Have you ever heard a prisoner crying out for peace?” a line which successfully sets his agenda and eases us into the play. We then transition into a card game played amongst inmates Stackolee (John Earl Jelks), Hobo Ben (Jonathan Earl Peck), Annabelle Jones (Phillip James Brannon) and newcomer Jesse James (Armando Riesco.)  It is during this scene the groundwork is laid and we see the true strength of Toast– the use of language to distinguish each character.  Smooth talkers and men of few words overlap and blend together to create one extended love poem to the thoughts (Forty cents for a tank of gas?!) and slang (and that’s no jive) to the men of the seventies.  It is through these moments that we follow the men from games and battles of wits to rec, work detail and fights- ending with a final battle that will change the face of the prison system forever.

Intertwined with great moments of ensemble energy are quiet moments where the poetry turns personal and our prisoners become human.  One of these stand out moments and performances is delivered by Phillip James Brannon in his toast to “Annie” Jones.  He flirts and sways his way through a monologue that speaks to the power of a “he-she” playing by his own rules, controlling his own money until “another ghetto story” is locked away. The audience is enraptured until the spell is broken- and the same can be said for all of these moments, especially when the epic toasts “Shine” and “The Signifying Monkey” are delivered. Lemon Andersen managed to let each character have a moment of escape from the ever-present jail cell and return seamlessly to the mounting restlessness of life in Attica without missing a beat.

Toast was originally presented as part of The Public Theater’s Public Lab, a program designed to:

“provide audiences with access to Shakespeare and new work with tickets starting at $20. Emerging and established artists gain a platform to further develop their work on stage and in performances with scaled-down productions that allow audiences and artists to engage with one another in the process of making theater.”

Andersen used this platform perfectly, engaging audiences and actors in an epic journey of language, character and life- development of which has only just begun. Audiences should expect to experience Toast in it’s next iteration very soon- for just as legends like Dolomite, Stackolee and Shine will not die, neither will Toast.