Sharon Washington shares her childhood tale of living inside the New York Public Library in Feeding the Dragon (photo by James Leynse)
Cherry Lane Mainstage Theatre
38 Commerce St.
Tuesday – Sunday through April 27, $72
212-989-2020
www.feedingthedragontheplay.com
primarystages.org
Amid all the high-profile theatrical extravaganzas that are trying to capture Tony buzz this spring, a small gem opened last month, a must-see, particularly for the literary-minded. From 1969, when she was ten, until 1973, Sharon Washington lived on the fifth floor of the St. Agnes Branch of the New York Public Library on the Upper West Side with her mother, Connie, a native New Yorker; her father, George, the Charleston-born library custodian; Connie’s mother, Gramma Ma; and their dog, Brownie. Washington, an actress who has appeared in such films as Die Hard with a Vengeance and Michael Clayton, such series as The Looming Tower and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and such plays as While I Yet Live and The Scottsboro Boys, is now sharing her poignant story in Feeding the Dragon, a Primary Stages production continuing at the Cherry Lane through April 27. Washington is a warm, eminently likable storyteller, moving across Tony Ferrieri’s welcoming set with grace, ease, and humor. The two-level stage features five glass windows in the back, with multiple rectangular panels of different colors, a wooden table and chair and desk lamp at the center, and several rows of library books and card catalog drawers, in addition to one pile of books piled high on the lower level, next to a stool. For eighty minutes, Washington keeps the audience riveted as she relates her engrossing tale, which for viewers of a certain age provides a similar thrill to E. L. Konigsburg’s From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, the classic children’s novel about a brother and sister who essentially live at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Actress Sharon Washington stars in one-woman show about her childhood at the Cherry Lane (photo by James Leynse)
During the day, Sharon would go to school, but when she got home and the library was closed, she voraciously read through the endless stacks of books, absorbing as much as she possibly could. She had free rein, except for the basement, where the furnace was. Her mother told her not to go down there because it was dangerous, but Sharon didn’t listen. “To me the furnace room was an enchanted cave where I could watch Daddy feed the Dragon,” she says, describing how the furnace looked like a monster to her. “I loved watching Daddy work. He was like a knight from my Blue Fairy book — St. George and the Dragon.” Sharon talks about the owners of the store next door, Mr. Sam and Miss Sophie; wonders how her parents got a baby grand piano into the apartment; discusses getting into Dalton; reenacts scenes from books with her best friend, Esther; and searches for Brownie when the dog escapes the apartment and runs into the library. When she discovers something about her father that her parents kept from her, she is sent to Queens for a few weeks to stay with Connie’s siblings, Aunt Sis and Uncle Gene, then goes on a road trip with her father to visit, for the first time, his family in Charleston, experiencing aspects of the real world that she couldn’t find in books, including Jim Crow. Sharon seamlessly flows from character to character, each with a distinct voice, while also reading passages from books by W. E. B. Du Bois, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and James Baldwin. But life there was far from idyllic for the Washingtons. “Let me tell you something, baby. Folks say all the time it must be so nice to live rent-free. Shoot . . . this ain’t free,” says her father, who had to shovel coal into the furnace to keep it constantly burning. “I work hard. Seven days a week. Don’t bother me . . . worth it to keep a roof over my family’s head. I ain’t scared of no hard work. That ain’t nothing new to me.” Director Maria Mileaf never allows the show to become stagnant; in addition to Sharon’s movement — and mad dancing skillz — lighting designer Ann Wrightson keeps the colors on the back windows changing, and sound designer Lindsay Jones adds offstage music and subtle audio effects. Sharon was inspired to tell her fairy-tale story — yes, she begins by saying, “Once upon a time, there was a little girl who lived in a library” — when journalist Jim Dwyer wrote a 2009 article about the family in the New York Times.. Of course, no one else could tell it as the girl who lived it. So forget those big-budget blockbusters and instead hurry down to the Cherry Lane before this library closes.