‘Beauty’s Daughter’ conjures one woman’s world in six characters

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Wandachristine as Diane, one of the six characters she portrays in “Beauty’s Daughter,” a one-woman show by Dael Orlandersmith presented by American Blues Theater. (Photo: Michael Brosilow)

Think of it as a living portrait gallery in which a single extraordinarily gifted actress alters every aspect of her being — face, body language, voice, accent, race, gender, temperament and relative state of intoxication — to capture six different people within the course of just 85 riveting minutes. And there you have it: The electrifying theatrical magic finessed by Wandachristine, who is now starring in the Chicago premiere of “Beauty’s Daughter,” the one-woman (six character) show by Dael Orlandersmith being presented by American Blues Theater.

‘BEAUTY’S DAUGHTER’ Highly recommended Through: Aug. 5 Where: American Blues Theater at Stage 773, 1225 W. Belmont Tickets: $19 – $49 Info: www.AmericanBluesTheater.com Run time: 85 minutes, with no intermission

“Beauty’s Daughter,” first performed by Orlandersmith herself in 1995, is not a traditional play. It is more of a “choreo-poem” — the term used by Ntozake Shange to describe her famous 1975 show, “for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow was enuf.” But however you label it, it is a stunning work, and is now being rendered with “powerhouse” (a word used to great comic effect in the play) emotional intensity wedded to dazzling technical prowess.

What’s more, if ever there were a piece that fully embodies the name of the theater presenting it, this is it. You can hear it in the blues, jazz, Latin and rock riffs that accompany its monologues, and in the nod to the verbal music of James Baldwin and the tormented adolescent French poet, Rimbaud. It emerges in the many distinctive voices of Noo Yawkers, as well as in its evocations of Harlem, which includes a nod to the legendary photographer James Van Der Zee. “Beauty’s Daughter” is not just the portrait of one woman and the people in her life; it is the whole American Blues tapestry writ large.

Actress Wandachristine as Anthony, one of the six characters she portrays in Dael Orlandersmith’s play, “Beauty’s Daughter,” presented by American Blues Theater. | Michael Brosilow

Actress Wandachristine as Anthony, one of the six characters she portrays in Dael Orlandersmith’s play, “Beauty’s Daughter,” presented by American Blues Theater. | Michael Brosilow

At the play’s center is Diane, a writer living in a Harlem apartment who, despite all her best efforts to dance around that thing called love — and to defend herself from what she calls “the slide” into disappointment and pain — is still vulnerable to it. But all her relationships are fraught — whether they are with men she meets in bars or at a wedding reception, with a youthful friend who might never make it off the streets, with the blind junkie hungry for handouts, with the girlfriend who just wants to have sex with her, or her bitter, elderly mother, from who she is estranged.

It all begins as Diane falls prey to a handsome Irish guy from Dublin. She reads him her poetry, and when he calls her “a powerhouse,” she is lost. She visits him in London, and as soon as she blurts out “I love you” it’s all over.

“Fast backward” to Papo, a Puerto Rican schoolmate with an alcoholic dad and a way with words. He offers her $19 (the proceeds of the drug dealing with which he supports himself) if she will write his term paper. (Later, on a walk through Harlem, Diane will tell us, “The only thing that separates me from them [meaning all the lost souls in her neighborhood] is the books in my room.”)

The sequence in which Diane is at a friend’s wedding and encounters Anthony, a sort of low-life, Italian-American guy who comes on to her (and is boldly rebuffed) while his wife is in the next room, is superb. The racist undertones here are palpable, but once the two begin bonding over jazz, the divide disappears. This does not mean he won’t follow his wife home.

There is the elderly neighbor, Mary Askew, too, who is surrounded by memories, and keepsakes she wishes she could give to someone — a sparkly necklace, old blues records. And finally there is Beauty, Diane’s bitter mother, a former dancer locked out of burlesque casts in her youth, who also blames her daughter for ruining her life.

Orlandersmith is a vivid writer whose language can play every possible sort of music (including the sound of different brands of sneakers). But it is Wandachristine who masterfully brings her characters to life under the fluid, incisive direction of Ron OJ Parson. The actress wholly alters the expression in her eyes with each transformation, and manages to imbue her body with boyish swagger one minute and burly macho-pig aggression the next. And the intimate Stage 773 space in which she performs (backed by an excellent design team) puts us within inches of her magic.

Word is that Wandachristine worked on this performance for a year. Time has paid off in transcendence.

Wandachristine, seen here as Papo, one of the six characters she portrays in Dael Orlandersmith’s play, “Beauty’s Daughter,” presented by American Blues Theater. |Michael Brosilow

Wandachristine, seen here as Papo, one of the six characters she portrays in Dael Orlandersmith’s play, “Beauty’s Daughter,” presented by American Blues Theater. |Michael Brosilow

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