Gregg Daniel plays a man facing judgment day in world premiere of The Duat
THE DUAT
Center Theatre Group
Available on demand through August 12, $10
www.centertheatregroup.org
Gregg Daniel is electric as a man caught between heaven and hell, defending the choices he made in his life, in the world premiere of Roger Q. Mason’s one-man show, The Duat, streaming from Center Theatre Group through August 12. Daniel plays Cornelius “Neil” Johnson, a Black man who, when we first see him, is blindfolded and barefoot. “If I’m in hell, I want to know. I want to see the fire before it takes me down,” he calls out, dancing as if the floor is burning hot. He’s actually in the Duat, the Egyptian underworld where the god Anubis weighs the hearts of the dead to determine where they will spend the afterlife.
Over the course of forty-five minutes, Johnson shares his story, starting with his birth in Texas in 1948 and the tragic death of his father, a railroad porter, four years later. Johnson visits his grandmama, attends a liberal integrated elementary school, excels at UCLA, and becomes a driver for a wealthy white woman. Daniel seamlessly switches between characters, from his angry mother to his brash father to his sensible, soft-spoken grandmother, performing brief, urgent interpretive dance movements at the end of each scene (choreographed by Michael Tomlin III). He is haunted by his father’s fate, dying “a colored death,” and is determined to have his own, unique identity. “I am somebody,” he says in different ways throughout the play, as if Johnson is trying to convince himself that he matters, that he will be seen. But trouble brews when he recounts his time with the US organization, a rival to the Black Panthers, as Johnson does something that he regrets.
Presented in association with the Fire This Time Festival and Watts Village Theater Company, The Duat is part of the third episode of the “Not a Moment, But a Movement” series; the first episode was introduced by Vanessa Williams and featured Angelica Chéri’s one-person play Crowndation; I Will Not Lie to David, while the second episode explored “Black Nourishment” with spoken word artists. The Duat is preceded by a conversation with Watts co-artistic director Bruce A. Lemon Jr. and LA-based visual artist Floyd Strickland and is introduced by Wayne Brady.
The Duat unfolds in the tradition of such solo-show geniuses as Anna Deavere Smith, Dael Orlandersmith, and Charlayne Woodard, as Daniel (Insecure, Urban Nightmares) portrays multiple characters detailing the Black experience in America. He doesn’t change costumes but alters his tone of voice as the narrative sometimes repeats itself from different points of view. Director Taibi Magar (Is God Is, Blue Ridge) zooms in for closeups of Daniel’s face and feet, then pulls back to reveal percussionist David Leach playing several instruments in the background, the spotlight behind him casting him in silhouette. (The effective lighting is by Brandon Baruch, with sound design and original music by David Gonzalez.) Mason (The White Dress, Onion Creek) pulls no punches as Johnson looks back at his life, warts and all, trying to understand who he is and what awaits him.