‘A Hit Dog Will Holler’ review: The price Black women activists pay

We have been dwelling as a result of traumatic occasions in recent years — the mass shootings, the purely natural disasters supercharged by local weather improve, a when-in-a-century pandemic, the Trump presidency capped off by an tried political coup, the flatulent troublemaking of Borat-dupe Rudy Giuliani.

For people today of color, these activities are compounded by the inescapability of racism. In “A Strike Pet Will Holler,” directed by Jon Lawrence Rivera at Skylight Theatre (by Dec. 12), growing playwright Inda Craig-Galván examines the non-public toll on two Black ladies who are in the trenches in the war towards racial injustice.

The play, a co-production of Skylight Theatre Business and Playwrights’ Arena at Skylight Theatre, usually takes position in February 2020. COVID-19 is right here but hasn’t yet closed down the nation. Trump has just been acquitted in his to start with Senate impeachment trial, and the national outlook is bleak.

Gina, a social media influencer, podcaster and author, conducts her activism from the confines of her appealing household in the Hyde Park community of Chicago. She life by itself and has not left the residence in years, but she’s deeply connected to the protest local community by way of her digital presence.

Her times are used contacting out oppression, rallying the forces whenever there is a police killing of an unarmed Black particular person and shoring up communal morale in the encounter of an onslaught of grievous information. The influence of all this tragedy on her psyche isn’t entirely apparent right up until a meals supply individual shows up at her door.

The sound of insistent knocking sends Gina into a Kafkaesque tailspin. When she opens the doorway, she hears the roar of the apocalypse. Dru, the extremely solicitous person carrying her food, is concerned for Gina’s properly-becoming and sticks all-around despite the brusque reception.

Struggling from a self-identified situation of “acute social agoraphobia,” Gina does not allow for everyone to cross her threshold. If she was not so incapacitated by panic, she’d be even more outraged that a best stranger was standing in her dwelling space providing her a glass of drinking water.

The remarkable set up swells with contrivances. There’s a painting hanging on Gina’s wall that coincidentally holds private which means for Dru. Without the need of giving also a lot away, the playwright utilizes this artwork as a unit for holding her people improbably alongside one another.

Neither Cheri VandenHeuvel, who performs Gina, nor Donna Simone Johnson, who portrays Dru (Kacie Rogers will before long be getting more than the purpose), is equipped to make the stilted conditions of the assembly feel credible. The uncomfortable blocking in between the actors accentuates the unreality, but the play ultimately settles into a significantly less awkward groove.

Dru, an underground activist and artist doing work as a supply person to pay out the expenses, is not in a hurry to reveal her closely camouflaged id. But inevitably it arrives out that she is DruCDru, the “so-referred to as Banksy of Black Lives Matter,” as Gina, who’s generally on the lookout for a media option for herself, excitedly phrases it. (Scoring an job interview with the elusive DruCDru would rescue Gina’s faltering reserve offer.)

Craig-Galván sets up an odd few marriage concerning a social media queen and a queer guerrilla warrior rumored to have knocked above a Accomplice statue and protected it with graffiti. Dru is as sincere as Gina is snarky — and as radical as she is careerist. But the two share a prevalent bond in remaining Black women in a culture that undervalues their contributions and endangers their lives.

Not like “Black Tremendous Hero Magic Mama,” an earlier enjoy by Craig-Galván (introduced at the Geffen Playhouse) that took flight into the realm of fantasy, “A Strike Pet Will Holler” operates in a more reasonable method. Over and above the expressionistic seem effect when the door to Gina’s dwelling is opened, the engage in follows a a lot more traditional logic.

The theatrical circumstance of two figures trapped in the same home is not easy to maintain, but Craig-Galván finds a thematically resonant alternative. An unexpected twist in the relationship happens. Suffice it to say that Gina and Dru may not see eye to eye on how to transform the globe, but their alienation and anxieties spring from the very same sociopolitical resource.

Sad to say, much too a lot time is put in signaling the differences concerning the characters. Gina and Dru are so chaotic outlining by themselves that they have little option to just be themselves. Craig-Galván, an alum of USC’s graduate remarkable composing application, has been swiftly garnering nationwide recognition. But she’s even now refining her craft.

VandenHeuvel and Johnson have issues falling into the rhythm of Craig-Galván’s from time to time strained dialogue. Gina refers to herself as a “wordsmith,” a tone-deaf description that can make Dru snicker. But Gina says she’s as critical “as a coronary heart attack.” She proudly reels off her credentials as a “political slash cultural slash activistic web strategist” who can pay for to have her meals shipped close to the clock.

In spite of some of the unconvincing-sounding speak, the actors endow their roles with textured individuality. Their portrayals are much less schematic, which is to say far more hauntingly true, than the characters’ pronouncements about them selves.

The engage in to its credit score resists the far more cliched route of a rescue narrative. Dru has not dropped into Gina’s secluded existence to aid reintegrate her into flesh-and-blood society. Equally figures need to perform by the PTSD of being Black and feminine in The us.

The physical generation, with its projections by Nicholas Santiago of tumultuous newspaper headlines, retains the outside entire world in sight. Rivera’s staging, capitalizing on a believably up to date inside established by scenic designer Jan Munroe, offers the engage in an expansive breadth.

At situations, “A Hit Doggy Will Holler” indicates that it may well be transforming into a enjoy tale. Which is one way of on the lookout at what unfolds concerning Gina and Dru. But their unlikely connection is not marked by romance. A shared wound unites them. Leaders in the battle for liberty, they are like fatigued health care personnel who have come to figure out that they far too want a assisting hand.