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THEATER REVIEW: City of Numbers, 2/13/10
The Web site for the award-winning alternative weekly, the Philadelphia City Paper.
THEATER REVIEW: City of Numbers, 2/13/10
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| Matt Slaybaugh | interacttheatre.org |
KILLADELPHIA >> It's not a nickname a native of the City of Brotherly Love particularly likes hearing. A murder-infested Philly, dubbed "Killadelphia," is the inspiration behind Sean Christopher Lewis' play City of Numbers: Mixtape of a City. Lewis' visual memoir, which takes us on a journey to understand myriad perspectives surrounding any murder, involves 12 different characters — and only one actor. Lewis takes on the roles of these characters and the narrator, not surprisingly named Sean, entwining the stories and personalities of a dozen individuals with his own to create a vivid narration.
Sean's journey begins when he agrees to interview several murder inmates at Graterford Prison — a relatively simple assignment that suddenly makes him come face to face with the crime problem in his city. The two "worlds" in Philadelphia, between citizens like Sean and the citizens who frequent the prisons, collide when the narrator makes contact with these prisoners; inmates Rico, Bobby and others open up to Sean and reveal their experiences living Killadelphia firsthand.
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| interacttheatre.org |
Sean meets Mural Arts Program director Jane Golden, listens to Rush Limbaugh, analyzes Mayor Michael Nutter's acceptance speech, and holds conversations with prisoners who are serving sentences of life without parole. Lewis' transitions from character to character, though simplified by the narrator's interjections, are distinct and distinguishable, giving this play the human interaction that it needs to send its message.
He doesn't sugar coat it, either. From character to character, cursing in our faces or damning all criminals, reasoning with lifers or sending the message of a victim's mother, he shows us what we need to realize: Without "picking up bucket" and starting to extinguish the fire we write off to the lowlifes of the world, Philadelphia will ever remain a dangerous place.
City of Numbers isn't recommended for a first date, but Lewis tells us that from the start. The memoir isn't supposed to be a happy-go-lucky interpretation of crime with the quintessential brilliant solution and bright look to the future at its ending. In fact, there's no solution given at any time in the piece as to how we should kill Killadelphia once and for all. Lewis' goal is political and personal in nature, a call to action as well as a plea to open our mind to the harsh realities of the crime that plagues Philly streets.
City of Numbers, through Feb. 21, $25-$29, InterAct Theatre Co. at the Adrienne, 2030 Sansom St., 215-568-8079, interacttheatre.org.
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