‘A Cool Dip in the Barren Saharan Crick’ drips with meaning

Kia Corthron's new off Broadway drama is soaked in ecological concerns

BY MICHAEL SOMMERS

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

OFF BROADWAY REVIEW

A skillful playwright with a strong sense of social awareness, Kia Corthron has created a number of gritty, compelling dramas. "Breath, Boom" considered the painful maturing of the leader of a girl gang. "Force Continuum" was a tragedy involving three generations of African-American police officers.

Corthron now considers global ecology in "A Cool Dip in the Barren Saharan Crick," which opened in its world premiere Sunday at Playwrights Horizons. Unfortunately, it's not one of her best efforts.

Soaked with data and imagery concerning water, the contemporary story centers on Abebe (William Jackson Harper), a young Ethiopian who comes to America to study religion and water conservation.

Abebe stays with middle-aged Pickle (Myra Lucretia Taylor) and her daughter H.J. (Kianne Muschett), whose family was tragically diminished by Hurricane Katrina the year before. Amid his studies, Abebe takes a kindly interest in a local orphan boy (Joshua King) rendered mute by a household massacre.

An overzealous soul, Abebe wants to help everybody - his Ethiopian village, his grieving hostess Pickle, the orphan and seven years later in the story, H.J. and her estranged husband (Keith Eric Chappelle). He talks big about halting destructive super-dam projects in Africa and spring-sucking new bottling plants in America.

Yet Abebe achieves nothing except to remain optimistic.

Is it Corthron's intention with this play to indict well-meaning but useless do-gooders? Although the writer portrays the eager-beaver Abebe in a sympathetic way, he ultimately proves to be a big loser.

Otherwise it's hard to grasp the point of this long, meandering drama which mixes the aftermath of several domestic tragedies with spiritual and ecological concerns. It also becomes increasingly difficult to swallow all of the facts about global water issues Corthron continually injects into the story.

Between its steadily irritating hero, diffuse plot and ecological information, the drifting drama seems interminable despite a typical first-class staging by Playwrights Horizons in a co-production with The Play Company and Culture Project. Director Chay Yew provides a good-looking show blessed by the warmth of Taylor's presence as a kindly woman haunted by her dead.

"A Cool Dip in the Barren Saharan Crick" continues through April 11 at Playwrights Horizons, 416 W. 42nd St., New York. Call (212) 279-4200 or visit www.playwrightshorizons.org.