We should probably talk about Kara Young and how this woman can fit what feels like a mountain of blood, heart, sinew and febrile emotional response into a frame that can’t stretch past five feet.
Young (“Syncing Ink”) is now starring in “All the Natalie Portmans,” a top-heavy coming-of-age dramedy by C.A. Johnson at MCC Theater. She plays Keyonna, a queer teenager grappling with an alcoholic mother, a dead father, an overburdened older brother, a complicated crush and the threat of eviction. It’s too much, but somehow Young meets that too-muchness with a restless, vital performance, all busy hands and tight lips and twitching eyelids.
Could Natalie Portman do that?
Set in Washington in 2009, the play tracks a tumultuous few months in Keyonna’s life. A charter school student with a spotty attendance record and an obsession with white actresses, she shares a small apartment with her brother, Samuel (Joshua Boone), who works nights at a local bar, and her mother, Ovetta (Montego Glover), who cleans hotel rooms and occasionally disappears for days on end, sunk at the bottom of a bottle.
Keyonna soothes herself with collaged vision boards and ’90s movies, and dreams of writing screenplays for Natalie Portman, or someone like her. “Smart, but sweet,” Keyonna says. “And kinda sexy in an untouchable way. Like one part princess, one part stripper, one part Russian spy.” A woman cannot live on DVDs and dry cereal alone, but Keyonna gives it her best shot. When she needs extra comfort, she imagines a Portman character emerging — from the bedroom, through the front door or, chillingly, out of the fridge — just to hang or battle with lightsabers. This could suggest a dissociative disorder; Johnson treats it as a quirk.
“All the Natalie Portmans,” affectionately directed by Kate Whoriskey, fluctuates between realism and surrealism on the same crowded, kitchen-sink set, designed by Donyale Werle. The volatile family dynamics might suggest Tennessee Williams’s “The Glass Menagerie,” with a gender-reversed gentleman caller (that would be Renika Williams’s soothing Chantel). A black girl’s fixation on a white actress could evoke Adrienne Kennedy’s “A Movie Star Has to Star in Black and White.” But Johnson’s script — eventful if not always assured — leans instead toward how-will-we-pay-the-rent melodrama and lukewarm fantasy. Even the choice of Portman (a plucky Elise Kibler) as her imaginary friend — a gag that doesn’t keep giving — feels insufficiently bold.
Portman is, Keyonna insists, “the best in the game.”
“Better than Charlize Theron?” Samuel asks.
“Well, no, but that ain’t even a fair comparison,” Keyonna says.
Johnson is a new talent; this is her Off Broadway debut. “All the Natalie Portmans” already displays a deft way with character, enhanced by the playwright’s palpable sympathy. Are these characters nice? Not especially. Are they good? Maybe. But Johnson evidently likes them, so we like them, too. The script softens their harder problems — a stretch in juvenile detention, a period of homelessness — and expresses compassion even for Ovetta, who wants to be a good mother, at least between benders.
Necessarily, Johnson saves the most love for Keyonna. While a better script might nudge her to grow or change, this one accepts her just as she is, even having Ovetta tell her, “Just keep on doin’ what you do.” Young’s full-body, whole-heart, tensed-muscle portrayal never apologizes. Instead, she embraces the character in all her individuality. Young should absolutely keep on doing what she does. And we should all be there to watch it.
All the Natalie Portmans
Through March 29 at the Robert W. Wilson MCC Theater Space, Manhattan; 212-727-7722, mcctheater.org. Running time: 2 hours 10 minutes.
Source: Theater - nytimes.com
