Gangsta lingo juxtaposed with Black Power polemics give Sunset Baby, the provocative new drama by Dominique Morisseau, its special flavor. The play, now in its West Coast premiere at the Odyssey, revels in language while an African-American father and daughter butt heads with each other in ferocious fashion.
Sunset Baby is set in an East Village flat, circa 2005, where Nina (the riveting Nadege August), a tough, cynical young woman lives on her own, listening to Nina Simone (whom she was named after) and dreaming of escaping New York’s mean streets. Nina’s got a boyfriend, Damon (the feral Chris Gardner), who partners with her in a street scam in which Nina dresses up like a hooker to attract Johns who then get rolled by her muscular sidekick.
Nina, we soon learn, is the child of Kenyatta (an imposing Vincent J. Isaac), a 1970s political activist whose fight for justice and equality brought the FBI down on him. Now, after a long prison term, he seeks out his daughter, hoping to patch things up between them. But Nina, who blames him for having chosen politics above family–a decision that impoverished her mother and cut short her life–is too angry and disillusioned to show him any kind of affection.
At stake is a batch of letters Kenyatta wrote to her mother while he was incarcerated, letters which tell the history of the Black Power movement from the inside. Coveted by historians and collectors, the letters are rare and valuable documents which also reveal that Kenyatta did indeed have a tender, loving side. That still doesn’t change Nina’s mind about him. She’ll give him the letters, she says, but only if he pays hard cash for them.
In an interview, the playwright explained why she sees the battle of the generations in such an unyielding way. “The hip-hop generation maintained the fire and the fight and the passion of the Black Liberation Movement,” she said, “but it abandoned the community and the socialistic aspect of the movement, adopting more of a capitalistic mentality. That abandonment creates gaps. It’s almost like we can’t see ourselves in each other, even though we’re direct descendants of each other.”
Sunset Baby goes deep into contemporary African-American life, creating three strong, vivid characters who confront and battle each other with all the conviction and passion they can muster. The drama may be overwrought at times, but that doesn’t spoil the play for me. On the contrary, I think it’s one of the best-written, -acted and -directed dramas I’ve seen in a long time.
