REVIEW: Long Way Down (Olney Theatre Center)
When someone you know is killed, the rules come in three like death.
No crying,
No snitching,
Get your revenge.
That’s the reverbing mantra in Olney’s latest, Long Way Down, a world-premiere musical adaptation of the young adult book of the same name by DMV native Jason Reynolds. Dahlak Brathwaite and Khiyon Hursey have provided a short-and-sweet hip-hop focused score for the award-winning novel, which covers a boy named Will as he debates the retribution for his brother’s death over the course of a minute that has been stretched into 90.
Book/Music
Brathwaite and Hursey have developed a minimally bodacious score, which involves only three live musicians but is still effective in its narrative push. It encompasses elements of traditional musical theatre behind its hip-hop facade, and steps aside for neo-soul inclusions as well that round out the fluidity. It’s great, and well-crafted for its cast, which I’ll talk more about below.
The plot is taken from the titular novel: Will’s older brother Shawn is shot dead, leaving him with even less male figures in his life following the death of his father as a baby. Shawn had told Will the “Three Rules” just prior, giving Will the opportunity to enact them as he would have wanted. He takes Shawn’s gun, gets in his building’s elevator, and goes down. The remainder of the musical progresses in Will’s mind over this minute in the “world’s slowest elevator”, as at each floor he is visited by spirits related to his upbringing and also were victim of the cyclone of gang warfare. While Will serves as a malleable sponge to these lessons, even in his reluctance to accept them, the true intrigue comes from said spirits, beginning with the brash Buck, and continues down through a deeply fleshed-out array of characters. The spirits are charismatic and directly empathetic, down to their behavior on the sidelines when the main stage demands the attention. Though the lion’s share of the piece is a great, multifaceted resource on the network of suffering caused by gun violence, the abruptly uncertain ending prevents this from feeling like the lessons taught are driven home as much as they should be. It’s a potentially “realist” approach that asserts the issue is unbreakable without a more seismic shift (as opposed to one person’s choice), for sure, but there were directions the ending could have taken that invoke the complexity of this revenge without a troublesome frayed end. 8/10
Acting
The excellent ensemble is anchored by the pathological Tyrese Shawn Avery (Will) and initially by the sternly welcoming Victor Musoni (Shawn) as well, who despite his character’s background remains a solid source of trust. The collection of elevator spirits are each uniquely personable with uniquely jewe voices, though Parris Lewis is a knockout as the familial masc Buck who is a constant scene-stealer with every quip. In a great spark of direction from the composers and Ken-Matt Martin, each are given ample time to showcase their abilities as performers with dedicated songs and occasional non-musical interludes that expand on their motivations and behavior in life. Watching each one make their entrance and reveal what their connection to Will was as an exploration into the cycle of violence is riveting, a fashionably engaging method of pushing the story along as efficiently as possible. 9/10
Production
Though this is Olney’s smaller space, the Mulitz-Gudelsky Theatre Lab, it’s effectively utilized via Simean Carpenter’s smart scenic and lighting design. Motifs of elevator “up” and “down” buttons scatter around the bilevel set, which itself embodies a sense of verticality with its uneven zephyrs that evoke motion even down to the chairs. The gravity is disrupted by caged platforms and flutily colored doors for projecting the silhouettes in Will’s mind. Director Martin makes excellent use of the small elevator present in most of the show to convey the crowdedness of Will’s psyche. Musoni also co-choreographs the production alongside Martin, which is attractively expressive and lucid. The costumes by Danielle Preston is demonstrably understanding of its characters, from the dorky candy stripes of Will’s fit to the period-accurate (down to the year, it seems) attire of the spirits as if they were in life (the Washington Bullets hat was a nice touch). 9/10
Viz
Pre-show allows you to soak in all the motion at play, the blues of the atmosphere inviting you to a somber story soon to unfold. The program art is solidly composed, too, using perspective on the streaky font to convey movement and silhouetting Will against a blurry smattering of the ghosts he is to face. 8/10
Verdict
Long Way Down is an excellent fable of breaking generational cycle of violence, and though the merits of its ending are up for debate, its splendid casting and exciting production design pushes the production into validity. 34/40
