Skeleton Crew

Or: Once, In A Great City

At one point of Dominque Morisseau’s Skeleton Crew, Shanita (Cadence Thomas), an expectant mother and employee of the last independent stamping plant in Detroit, talks of the “good sounds” she wants her child to hear in utero: the thrum and press and hiss of the plant its mother works for. It speaks to a love of labor and a pride of place that runs like a rich thread through Morisseau’s tapestry and is so often unembroidered in plays purporting to celebrate the working class. Set in the break room of the factory, wedged and overshadowed by the colossuses of industry, we catch a beautifully wrought and brilliantly crafted story about the family that labors together.

Shanita, along with the street-wise but sweet-hearted Dez (Sherrick Robinson) are skilled machine operators, making money and taking pride in their work, an honest and upright manufacturing job. They both fall into the gravitational orbit of the company’s grand matriarch Faye (Marti Gobel), rounding the corner of her thirtieth year, and under the somewhat lenient rule of their supervisor Reggie (DiMonte Henning). Unfortunately, the time is 2008 and the Great Recession is gathering speed. Amid whispers of the plant closing and personal troubles beginning to boil over, this small group of logicals will have to open their hearts wider and use all their skill, and cunning, and hope to get by.

It is a play of beautiful, beautiful poetry. The lyrical language resonates from pillar to post, from the most mundane off-the-cuffs to monologues filled with trembling. Some favored lines: much paraphrased include “—Feeling the fear so great you can’t coast without that metal.” or “If ‘If’ was a fifth we’d all be drunk,” or “If you’re feeling froggy, better go on and leap.” And her fine dialog is wrapped around a story not just building blindly towards conflict, but carefully raised to whet our whistles and still our breath in our seats.

We get a lovely wryness and delicacy from Thomas, a well balanced and well-bridled passion from Robinson, and a fine, rich inner turmoil cooling against outward professionalism by Henning. But the show belongs to Faye and I was absolutely captivated by Gobel’s sterling performance. The weight of her life, of her job, stamped into her bones, the white heat of her attention and the regal authority of her voice, Faye carries an authority to her that makes a whole audience dangle on her every word. It’s a part of Shakespearian grace and she plays it to the hilt.

This is a play that celebrates Black America, its women and men, and it goes out of the way to tap the production From its soundtrack of Hip-hop, blues, and Motown (a tip of the hat to its brothers and sisters under Morisseau’s pen, the trilogy that forms the Detroit Project) and the scene shifts of silhouettes (choreographed and rendered by Aliya Mayers) of graceful black women giving life to the machinery, to the “Rules of Engagement” provided in the program by the playwright (vocal assertion and testifying is encouraged. And while you’re there, be sure to read director Jake Penner’s personal story, it’s well done); everything seeks to celebrate an under-told world, of the triumphant though toiling souls who make the wheels spin and get so little recognition for their labors.