Astounding and heartbreaking

Celebration Arts gives this stage adaptation of Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, her first novel, the attention to language and emotion it deserves. Some give credit for that, no doubt, to the work of adapting playwright Lydia Diamond; the rest may be rightfully laid at the feet of director James Wheatley and an excellent cast that includes a number of astounding and heartbreaking performances.

Morrison's story is set in the black community of an unnamed Ohio town and is told, for the most part, through the eyes of the young Claudia (Brooklynn Solomon) and her sister, Frieda (Eliza Hendrix), as they approach adolescence in the post-war years. The subject of their tale is their friend, Pecola Breedlove (Carol Jefferson), and the tragedy that racism, poverty and abuse wreak in her life.

Not without its humorous moments—and Solomon, Hendrix and Jefferson are able, at times, to elicit the delight of childhood—this play is also not for the faint of heart, as it examines the way that the ingrained racism of American culture rejects and ignores African-Americans from infancy on. For Pecola, it is as if she doesn't exist—until she finally doesn't.

Kudos for outstanding performances in painful and somewhat unsympathetic roles go to KT Masala (Mrs. Breedlove) and Zarati Depaz (Cholly Breedlove). The strength of both the story and their portrayals leads us to understanding and some measure of compassion for the way their wounds are inflicted doubly on their child.

Both the writing and directing, though, combine to make the most painful scenes—Cholly's abuse at the hands of armed white men during his first sexual experience and his rape of his daughter—more powerful and less graphic than might be expected. Still, this is not a play for younger children or sensitive audiences.

With a spare stage and minimal props, the company uses its physical and vocal talents to create an entire world. It is, for the most part, successful, though some problems with lighting cues and long blackouts between scenes break up the pacing.

That is not, however, enough to disrupt the power and tragedy of Pecola's story, nor the terrible, terrible beauty of the resistance to institutional racism mounted by the defiant Claudia and her bright and funny sister.