Acting, tight dialogue make ‘Satellites’ fly
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You’ll like “Satellites” more if you know nothing about it. So, stop reading.
For those of you who don’t want to like the play more, Diana Son, a writer/producer on “Law and Order: Criminal Intent,” has been called her generation’s Neil Simon. She’s not, just as George Carlin wasn’t HIS generation’s Mark Twain. Apples and kumquats.
Nor do I find Son’s play, “Satellites,” a study of “big-city identity crisis,” as one reviewer called it, or an understanding of what it’s like to be a hyphen American. In “Satellites,” directed by Michael Tick, the hyphenated ones are a Korean-American architect; her husband, an out-of-work, dot-com producer who’s African American; an older across-the- street neighbor, black, who pre-dates hyphens and a past middle-aged Korean nanny who’ll happily die just plain Korean.
Oh, the African-American dot-com guy’s brother is white. Long story. The actor who plays the brother looks Irish or Austrian.
The reason you should see “Satellites” is for its tight dialogue and acting that includes experienced theater students and equity actors. Without the playbill, you’d be guessing who’s student and who’s pro. Virginia Wing, who plays the nanny, Mrs. Chae, could be a “nontraditional student” finally going for that MFA in theater.
Jessica Wu (Nina), a veteran of the LSU boards, could have stepped in for Sandra Oh, who opened “Satellites” at The Public Theater in New York. Nina has her office in the Brooklyn brownstone she and her husband are renovating and living in with their baby and a growing list of newcomers.
Yohance Myles, who plays the husband, Miles, (that’s right) is another LSU actor we’ve enjoyed watching learn his craft.
Eric, Miles’ brother, is played by Nick Rhoton. Rhoton has either done his time as a writer of “business plans” or he’s roomed with several career business plan writers.
Kit, Nina’s partner in a two-woman architecture firm on the brownstone’s bottom floor, is played by equity actor Michele Guidry who could try out for LSU cheerleader once she can yell in a mouse’s voice, “Gay Taygers” (Go Tigers).
Wing, as Mrs. Chae, pours more plaster into the stereotype of Korean grandmother. “Mother” in Korean is pronounced “Mommy.”
Equity actor James Edward Lee plays across-the-street neighbor Reggie, old school black man to Miles’ call me Miles, call me brother but do NOT “call me nigger in my own house.”
Lee is the keel in this slim sloop of a show. Look for Walter, played by Kenneth De Abrew. He’s right there.
John Raley’s set is functional with clear sight lines. It could be the inside of a brownstone at 127 Rose Parks Ave., Brooklyn, or it could be one of the bigger houses on East State Street before the place was turned into 12 apartments.
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