Possession—of fine art, designer accessories, and, most important, people—is at the core of “Daddy,” Jeremy O. Harris’ wildly ambitious, sometimes confounding, and wholly engrossing new drama now making a splash (literally) in a Vineyard Theatre–New Group coproduction at off-Broadway’s Signature Center.
“Art loses its worth the minute it can be bought,” twentysomething Franklin (played by Ronald Peet) pretentiously tells the much-older Andre (an immensely appealing Alan Cumming) between kisses and caresses; a minute earlier, Andre was worshipfully rubbing his head up and down Franklin’s bare left leg. “It becomes worthless once it’s owned.”
Franklin describes Andre’s taste—a Calder, a Lichtenstein, an O’Keefe, an Arbus, two Shermans, and a room of Basquiats—as “booty.” Franklin is an artist—he makes what he describes as “soft sculptures… these weird dolls of black boys…all naked, deformed”—so naturally he’s qualified to say things like “You seem like the kind of dude who has a shit ton of money, but like, no guidance, no education and no taste.” Miraculously, that disdain does nothing to diminish Andre’s desire. “Be mine,” Andre asks his beautiful almost-naked guest. Or is it a demand? Still…one look at Andre’s glistening glass house, the swimming pool twinkling invitingly—Matt Saunders designed the gorgeous cerulean-saturated Hockney-inspired set—and you know what Franklin’s answer will be. That gospel-style music you hear in the background, incidentally, is the beginning of George Michael’s “Father Figure,” which will pop up a few times throughout the play.
[Read Michael Sommers’ ★★ review here.]
Andre’s expansive Southern California house also provides Franklin with airy studio space; his friends, Bellamy (Kahyun Kim) and Max (Tommy Dorfman), with the perfect poolside spot to Instagram; and his Bible-toting mom, Zora (Charlayne Woodard), with a place to (over)stay during his art show. But Zora is not charmed by her host: “Something ain’t right. I don’t know if it’s him or this place or what.… My spirit is unsettled.” Andre even tries to soften her up with a gift from Hermès—A Birkin! “And a scarf, because ‘no woman should be without’” (very true)—but she remains unimpressed.
It’s to Harris’—and director Danya Taymor’s—credit that we never know who to side with, Zora or Andre. By all accounts, the relationship between Franklin and Andre should scream “inappropriate”: Andre’s spanking, Franklin’s thumb-sucking, the whole daddy/son thing. But Zora is the one rubbing cocoa butter on her grown son’s bare body and pleading with him to tell her about “the sex”: “Do it make you feel invincible? Like you breathe deeper and harder than anyone else?” And make no mistake: She is there to stake her claim. Zora to Franklin: “You know I love you. You’re mine. You know that right?” (Andre, meanwhile, ostensibly has more to give. “I love you,” he tells Franklin. “You’re mine, I’m yours.”) No wonder Franklin wants to hide in his studio and play with his dolls—which get bigger and bigger, eventually growing to larger-than-lifesize, as he becomes more and more childlike. (New Haven, CT–based artist Tschabalala Self designed the dolls.)
Harris has a gift for making audiences uncomfortable (see: the recent Slave Play at New York Theatre Workshop), and a knack for getting even the tiniest detail correct (selfie-obsessed Bellamy’s inability to decipher longhand: “You guys, do either of you know how to read cursive?”). Yet at nearly three hours, with two intermissions, “Daddy” (subtitled A Melodrama) is bursting at its seams. The Gospel Choir—Carrie Compere, Denise Manning, Onyie Nwachukwu—is a brilliant touch, especially when they evolve into a sort of Greek chorus; but eventually they devolve into little more than furniture movers. The discussions of art are fascinating—especially Franklin and Andre’s exchange about Kara Walker’s Domino Sugar Factory piece (“You get to fly by her pain and bathe in her spectacle. You get to forget the little black boys melting in the summer sun.” Franklin explains)—but ultimately fruitless. Like Andre’s overstuffed art collection, “Daddy” needs some curating.
“Daddy” opened March 4, 2019, at the Pershing Square Signature Center and runs through March 31. Tickets and information: thenewgroup.org
