Just in time for Gay Pride Month comes Mansa Ra’s …what the end will be, which is about, as one character describes it, “a houseful of queens.”
As calculatedly happens throughout …what the end will be, there are discussions of many potential ends — including one quite significant, quite literal end. But the play itself suggests there is no end in sight for the societal changes that have occurred over the last several decades and will surely uncork surprises for decades to come.
How long ago is it when the very notion of a dramedy concerning three generations of Black homosexuals in one family would have stretched credibility far beyond the snapping point? How long ago is it — four years, maybe six, maybe fewer–when a character would talk about what pronouns he uses?
All of this and more takes place during Ra’s intermissionless 90 minutes. Oh yes, a mixed-race gay marriage is among the work’s focuses — and the relatively recent inclusion of men repeatedly kissing men. What was once scandalous has become just about everybody’s not-that-again.
In set designer Reid Thompson’s sleek version of a two-story upper-middle-class home on which hang paintings described as “Afro-centric,” wheelchair-confined Bartholomew Kennedy (Keith Randolph Smith) has moved in with his successful businessman son Maxwell (Emerson Brooks), grandson Tony (Gerald Caesar), and Maxwell’s white husband Charles (Randy Harrison).
It’s anything but a quiet household. When the action begins, Maxwell, usually addressed as Max, is not on speaking terms with Charles, which explains Charles’s early absence. Max is also regularly involved in verbal combat with Tony over pretty much any kind of father-son issue imaginable. (Perhaps not every last one, since, with no notable mention of Max’s wife/Tony’s mother, outright Oedipal issues don’t crop up.)
Only one woman is frequently present in this gay men’s environment, Bartholomew’s hospice nurse Chloe (Tiffany Villarin), a constantly calming influence. There is also the very effeminate and happily so Antoine (Ryan Jamaal Swain) for whom Tony has recently fallen. (Costumer Emilio Sosa dresses Antoine for outrageousness.) For obvious reasons, Tony hasn’t told his father, a man concerned with moving up the executive ladder. He has confided in the more understanding Charles, instigating another opportunity for father-son and husband-husband contentiousness.
There’s the set-up for at least two levels of fathers arguing with sons and one example of gay husbands quarreling with each other — often for laughs. This is because …what the end will be is to a large extent a father-son-themed comedy as much as it is a father-son-themed drama.
Ra has also composed a play of much sentiment, if not cheerfully crossing the line into sentimentality as he eventually makes a go of accentuating the positive and eliminating the negative. He’s not only going for laughs. He’s going for tears. The cunning fellow is also plugging for laughter through tears.
Reporting this will be a come-on for some and perhaps a no-freakin’-way for others. This reviewer will, however. also accentuate the positive. Perhaps a tease having to do with what eventually transpires between Max and Antoine concerning the latter’s make-up skills will serve as enough to keep skeptics intrigued.
On a basic dramaturgical angle, however, Ra can frequently be felt finding ways to maneuver certain characters off-stage so that certain other characters are left alone to have their heated exchanges in private. The awkwardness is a drawback and needs to be noted, though it’s hardly fatal.
As more than implied above, there is in …what the end will be one definite, irrevocable end, one that’s-it-for-good-and-all end. Any even mildly astute reader may have already pinpointed that the specific conclusion will involve wheelchair-confined Bartholomew.
A wise, amusing senior, he’s also gravely afflicted. His condition extends further than diabetes and hallucinations during which he sees his deceased husband, Freddy, whom he married after his wife died. His state is concretely outlined when nurse Chloe instructs Max and Charles on the slew of pills Bart needs during a day. Expecting something of the sort, Max has already cleared a drawer for Chloe’s contents.
Repeatedly minimizing his pain to Chloe, Bart doesn’t fool her and isn’t likely to fool spectators as to what he has in mind sooner than later. Nothing more will be revealed here about the development — only to say that Ra has his characters, as directed by Margo Bordelon with exquisite sensitivity, played by the ensemble, and well-lighted by Jiyoun Chang, handle whatever is decided with unadulterated believability.
Along with his many entertaining wisecracks, Bart declares soon after arriving that “Blacks can’t be racist.” Some might immediately respond that the joke is already racist. If that’s the case, it’s so humorously mild as to make little matter in a welcome play that eschews racist issues to underline universal issues about how one family negotiates often compromising ways to remain a family.
what the end will be opened June 2, 2022, at the Laura Pels Theatre and runs through July 10. Tickets and information: roundabouttheatre.org
