The love story between Des (short for Destiny) and Dre (Dream) begins in high school, but we first meet them years later after their love has long passed – or has it?
“Shifters,” a two-hander from England now at the Cherry Lane Theater, has all the makings of a romantic comedy. The two smart and witty characters are playful combatants and reluctant soulmates; Heather Agyepong and Daniel Ezra portray them with convincing rapport and an engaging repertoire of precise and revealing gestures and expressions.
But playwright Benedict Lombe, whose debut play four years ago, “Lava,” won the prestigious Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, clearly wants “Shifters” to be something deeper and more distinctive than a typical romcom. She attempts this in various ways, some more successful than others.
When the play begins, Des has returned to the North of England for the funeral of Dre’s Nana. Dre and Des say hi, tentatively – it’s been eight years since they’ve even seen one another – and they then spend the rest of the day together, reminiscing, getting reacquainted, getting drunk, getting too close. These scenes that unfold over hours alternate seamlessly with scenes from the past that unfold over years, starting when they meet at age 16: He’s new to the school, loves how argumentative she is, joins the debate team and actively recruits her into it. Time and memory are meant to be fluid, foggy; we’re clued in by the play’s abstract design of vertical lights that vibrate in different colors, suggesting synapses, or perhaps something celestial.
In a program note, Lombe, who was born in the Republic of the Congo and lives in London, tells us she wants the play to “shift the theatrical canon” by depicting a “universal love story” specifically between a British Congolese woman and a British Nigerian man. The specificity of their cultures counts among the strengths of the play. The banter between the two of them includes debates over Congolese versus Nigerian music, and the sharing of recipes; Dre’s dream is to open a restaurant whose cuisine is “West and Central Africa Fusion.”
As “Shifters” progresses, we learn more and more of the heavy-duty tragedies and traumas that they each experienced, which suggest the overwhelming challenges that faced their relationship then; but such difficulties also subtly undercut any possibility of a reunion now – even if she weren’t engaged to be married to somebody else, and he didn’t have a five-year-old son with a woman who nevertheless refuses to marry him.
The shifting in “Shifters” is not just in in time. Their dialogue scenes alternate with direct addresses to the audience. Sometimes these are mostly exposition (often in the second person), e.g. Dre: “You’re sixteen. You’re in Year 12. It’s your first week, at a new school, in a new town..”) Sometimes these mini-monologues express their unspoken thoughts or explain their feelings. Des: “It’s a strange thing, isn’t it? Living in a Black body and trying to become aware of the way your body interacts with the world and not just the way the world interacts with your body.” This device helps clarify where we are chronologically in the back-and-forth narrative, and allows for meditations on everything from fate to (as in the example just now) the Black body to the pressures of being first generation to the neurology of first love. But some of these crossed the line from artful to arty. And others felt worse than unnecessary. When Des, an aspiring visual artist, presents Dre with a portrait she has painted of him, he turns to us and says: “It took your breath away.” He doesn’t tell her that; he tells us. This didn’t just seem mannered, it felt almost like the playwright’s diss on Daniel Ezra, the British actor who is best known on this side of the Atlantic as the football star Spencer James in the TV series “All American.” He and Heather Agyepong don’t always need the playwright’s words to tell us how they’re feeling They’re breathtaking enough as actors for us to know it.
Shifters
Cherry Lane Theater through August 30
Running time: 1 hour 50 minutes, no intermission
Tickets: $59 – $169. Rush: $24
Written by Benedict Lombe
Directed by Lynette Linton
Scenic and costume design by Alex Berry, lighting design by Neil Austin, sound design by Tony Gayle, composer and soundscape designer Xana, movement and intimacy director Shelley Maxwell
Cast: Heather Agyepong and Daniel Ezra
