Theater Review: Broke-ology

A Sweet Story about Priorities
By Lauren Yarger
Two brothers are at odds about how best to care for their ailing father in Nathan Louis Jackson’s tender and moving Broke-ology playing off-Broadway at Lincoln Center.

Malcolm King (Alano Miller) returns to his Kansas City, KS home after college to take a job with the EPA and ostensibly to help brother Ennis (Francois Battiste) care for their father, William (Wendell Pierce), who is suffering debilitating effects of Multiple Sclerosis. An offer to return to his Connecticut alma mater to teach under his mentor has Malcolm wondering whether he can make the sacrifice to stay, however.

There’s no decision to make, according to Ennis, who didn’t have the opportunity to go to college and who works at a menial job to support himself and his girlfriend and their baby. The tensions are skillfully woven against a genuine affection among the King men and the presence of their mother, Sonia (Crystal A. Dickinson), whom we meet in 1982 when she is expecting Ennis, and again as the action continues in 2009 when she appears as a ghost to William.

Whether the brothers are engaging in good-natured banter as they play a game of bones with their father , discuss Ennis’ "scientific” theory of how to be broke, prankishly steal a neighbor’s garden troll or argue about whether William should go into a nursing home, the drama is taut, well directed by Thomas Kail and real. You not only feel for the brothers in their desire to pursue their dreams while doing what is right by their father, but you understand William’s anguish about not being able to care for himself and wanting to do what is best for his sons.

Dolyale Werle creates the “men obviously live here’ cluttered and dingy set representing the King home in a less than desirable section of Kansas City and costumer Emily Rebholtz dresses the men appropriate to their characters. “We Are Family” is among the selections playing as the audience enters (Jill BC DuBoff, sound) to set the mood and lighting by Jason Lyons lets us catch glimpses of life outside the house where the Kings seem trapped.

It’s funny and moving and ultimately, a portrait of our own family lives: we’ll ether be in the position of the sons or the father one day, despite our best hopes and dreams, and we too will have to decide what’s most important.

Broke-ology plays through Nov. 22 at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theatre at Lincoln Center, 150 West 65th Street, NYC. Tickets are available by calling (212) 239-6200
Outside NY: (800) 432-7250 For discounted group tickets go here and indicate the charity you wish to support is Masterwork Productions.

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