Regina Taylor’s new play, Magnolia, running at the Goodman until April 19th, is a retelling of Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard. Taylor replaces the failing, middle-aged children of Russian aristocracy in turn-of-the-century Russia with failing, middle-aged children of plantation owners in a rapidly integrating Atlanta in 1963. Chekhov’s representation of middle class is Lopakhin, the son of a serf that buys the orchard out from under the family; Taylor’s is Thomas, the son of a drunken, minstrel-performing former slave. Similarly, Liubov Ranyevskaya, the wealthy, rebellious heiress who has been living in Paris is now Lily Forrest, the wealthy southern rebel-belle who has been traveling the East, tenting with the Bedouin and eating sushi in Japan. Even Firs, the aging butler, appears as Samuel, a dedicated domestic who continues to dress his master, Beau, who, like his Chekhov counterpart, is so distracted by ball games in his head that he still needs a dresser. These analogies of character boarder on brilliance.
Unfortunately Taylor stifles all this originality in the first act by keeping the cast segregated. The African American community eats soul food at a diner while the white aristocracy sips Champaign at a super club. While this provides a platform to share painfully truthful exposition about the opposite group in a way Chekhov never could have, it also prohibits the most exciting scenes of the original where the working class is directly confronted by incompetence of the aristocracy. Like Greek drama, the audience hears about dramatic scenes that happen offstage, like the funeral, rather than seeing them.
In the second act, our hard-earned patience pays off when Thomas and Lily finally riff onstage together. Both Annette O’Toole and John Earl Jelks show off the type of acting chops that put the Goodman at the top of its class. Unfortunately, the under-developed or misinterpreted characters around them distract from their incendiary performances. While Maya, the diner waitress, and Meshach, the super club bartender, seem aptly played, the roles seem superfluous and underwritten. Conversely, Paul, the Bob Dylan-like freedom rider, serves a purpose but the actor misses the mark. Paul is the son of a racist preacher, who should be conflicted about his lustful thoughts about both Lily and her daughter Anna. Instead Cliff Chamberlain completely ignores that impure thoughts even exist robbing O’Toole of her great Blanch DuBois moment. While O’Toole is brilliant, even she falls into an easy trap during her fit near the end of the play. Like Lopakhin buying the Ranyevskaya estate in The Cherry Orchard, Thomas’s ownership of the plantation changes nothing in the eyes of the wealthy. Like Lily says when she finds out he has purchased the land, “Who the %^$ does he think he is?” The meaning of that line is that, in her eyes, he is a second-class citizen, a slave, or the son of a slave, regardless of what he owns. O’Toole would have befitted from playing the opposite there- quietly accusing him- because Lily screaming and gnashing teeth, which O’Toole does, means Thomas successfully grabbed power. He has not. Like Lophakin, Thomas is left with a shuffling servant, an empty house, and a string of broken relationships.
