And He Sings, Too

From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette review of our favorite wandering actor's latest gig:

The best structured play in Program A is "The Kitchen," an early play by Rob Zellers, best known as co-author of "The Chief." Like "Summer's Tale," it has a frank focus on the gulf between white and black, but at 46 minutes it has the time to develop a fuller story and richer characters.

Primarily, those are white Joe (Ken Bolden) and black Fred (Jamal). In the middle of the night, Joe catches Fred's teenage son, Michael (Redwood), about to rob his house. He calls Fred rather than the cops, and the two spar, exchange views, lecture and fight, while Michael offers objections and Joe's wife (Nancy Mimless) gets her own smaller rant.

Mainly, the two men confront each other about myths and truths about black and white. In the process, they discuss language, clothing, pit bulls, kitchen equipment and especially music -- Stevie Wonder, Funkadelic, soul and the catastrophe called disco. What have we come to, they wonder, when the best golfer is black and the best rapper, white? Some dialogue sounds implausible, but director Jeannine Foster McKelvia nicely balances the many laughs with the serious message, and the ending is not simply feel-good and pasted on.