“I’m always trying to make the intimate epic.” That’s playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney last year on The Brothers Size, in advance of its 20th-anniversary production at the Geffen Playhouse, where he’s the artistic director. If you see The Brothers Size at The Shed—the Geffen is a co-producer, and McCraney the co-director with Bijan Sheibani—you’ll see what he means.
Epic: characters inspired, in name and personality, by Yoruba mythology; the bonds of brotherhood, both by birth and by choice; the barriers—physical, psychological, and societal—faced by recently incarcerated young Black men. Intimate: the staging, which confines all the action to a circle defined by a dusting of sand; the dialogue, which requires spoken stage directions, giving McCraney’s writing a tautness and sense of immediacy; and the size of The Brothers Size, i.e., three actors, plus a musician (Munir Zakee is the percussion-heavy one man band).
André Holland plays Ogun Size and Alani iLongwe plays Oshoosi Size, the eponymous brothers; Malcolm Mays is Elegba, who became Oshoosi’s brother “in the pen,” a time that Elegba recalls almost wistfully. If you’re wondering whether their relationship went deeper than that, the implication is there—a shared look, an eyebrow-raising line (“We got close like that”), a casual but calculated touch. More is revealed, or, rather, confirmed, in McCraney’s Marcus, Or the Secret of Sweet—the follow-up to The Brothers Size and the final entry in his trilogy, The Brother/Sister Plays.
[Read David Finkle’s ★★★★☆ review here.]
Lucky theatergoers might remember seeing The Brother/Sister Plays in 2009 at the Public Theater starring André Holland as Elegba in The Brothers Size; he also played a younger version of Elegba in the first play, In the Red and Brown Water, and, finally, his own son, Marcus. So it’s a thrill to see Holland—widely known for his turn in the gorgeous Academy Award–winning coming-of-age gay drama Moonlight (for which McCraney and Barry Jenkins received a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar)—grow into the steely Ogun, perhaps McCraney’s most complex creation next to Pharus in the roof-raising drama Choir Boy.
The owner of an auto body shop, Ogun—named for the Yoruba deity of iron and metalworkers—is the self-anointed father figure, protector, employer, and even daily alarm clock to the wayward Oshoosi. Running on resentment and suspicion, he’s fueled by a deep-seated fear of losing his younger brother—to prison, to Elegba, or both; lashing out is Ogun’s way of showing love. “I know I was once in prison. I am out and I am on probation. Damnit man,” Oshoosi sighs. “I ain’t trying to drive to Fort Knox. I ain’t about to scale the capital.” (That prophetic “scale the capital” line is not new; you can find it in the 2010 published version of the play.)
Chronologically, The Brothers Size is the second play in the trilogy, but McCraney wrote it first. That probably explains why the 90-minute-play stands on its own so well. But don’t be surprised if, at the end, you find yourself wanting to know more about these men. Fortunately, you can pick up The Brother/Sister Plays and read Elegba’s, Ogun’s, and Oshoosi’s stories from the beginning.
The Brothers Size opened Sept. 10, 2025, at The Shed and runs through Sept. 28. Tickets and information: theshed.org
