These exchanges are some of the most compelling in the entire play because Pinkins and Henderson are so very good at making these characters happen before us. And War surrounds her with apes acted by the other cast members, particularly one who calls himself Alpha (Tyrone Mitchell Henderson) and who interacts with her telepathically via subtitles projected above the action.
Which is a way of saying that if the latter are going to jell with audiences, the characters could use more detail, more nuance, and more than their own selfish whining to arouse our sympathies.Īs Roberta, Tonya Pinkins does wonders with the minimal dialogue she’s presented with-reiterating “hello’s” and “am I dreamings” like someone whose sanity and sense of identity are slipping away. One might say that the reason for the staging’s disjunction is that both the playwright and the director are more invested in Roberta’s elemental journey and have little sympathy for the play’s more naturalistic aspects. It sets up a situation where the unreal-a comatose woman’s inner life-is more interesting than the real: her sparring children at her bedside and the surprising relatives-from Germany-they didn’t know they had. Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s War, directed by Lileana Blain-Cruz at the Yale Repertory Theatre, is a play more intriguing than satisfying.
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