Next Act’s ‘Splash Hatch’ Is Potent Drama

Jada Jackson and Joseph Brown, Jr. Photo by Michael Brosilow.

The new Milwaukee theater season exploded last week with some catchy new titles – Run Bambi Run and Laughs in Spanish – but the most exhilarating and demanding of the pack is a tongue twister (try saying it fast a few times) whose meaning is almost inexplicable. Splash Hatch on the E Going Down is also an intriguing, almost stream-of-conscious environmental confrontation for audiences on our society’s hopes and challenges.

Splash Hatch opens the Next Act Theatre’s first full season under new artistic director Cody Estle, who helped choose the play by Kia Corthron and hired a sympathetic director, Cheryl Lynn Bruce, to steer some attractive and well-meaning actors in a challenging production through Oct. 15.

The central character, Thyme, prattles reams of information about pollution and environmental hazards — nearly hypnotizing us with her facts and commitment, though the acting is too often declamation rather than the charged sincerity that should dominate.

Still, the actress, Jada Jackson, is arresting, talented and personable whether spouting data, doing baby exercises, fighting with her girlfriend or cuddling with her husband. We increasingly sympathize with her character: Thyme is a smart pregnant teenager from Harlem whose wordy birth ritual week by week envisions her baby’s natural bathtub coming-out party (the splash hatch of the title) as her personality fights against the white social standards that keep her poorer Black community enveloped in pollution and doctor-ordered drugs (the E of the title refers generally to the New York City subway line that separates as well as connects communities).

Her parents, often well played by Kristin E. Ellis and James Carrington (both veterans at Next Act), bring their own lessons of living and acceptance (don’t blame the whites) and hope (look at the stars). Her constantly pregnant and derisive teenage friend, amusingly, winningly and then frighteningly played by Malaina Moore, offers a sarcastic counterpoint.

Her less literate and painfully young husband, a difficult role for Joseph Brown, Jr., goes along with her dreams. In fact, they sometimes seem in a race over who can rush faster to throw up in a hidden bathroom. She remains an enthusiastic hurler with morning sickness while he is being unknowingly undone from a childhood spent eating lead paint and his adult work in a lead abatement construction job that he hangs onto simply for future health benefits.

Actor Brown does best while lying still or listening, which is often his role around the talkative Thyme, who is slow to realize how sick he is. But the husband’s role is the least satisfyingly developed in the ensemble.

All this is just one of the ironies Corthron is playing with – what people willingly or unknowingly ignore just to handle life. The production style is abstract: A checkerboard floor and a back wall of window panes and one roving neon light bar are the only constants to suggest New York City while apartment bed, hospital bed, bathtub, table, rugs and TV trays are scooted in and out by the cast operating as stagehands.

You have to listen carefully to realize how much power and observation playwright Corthron has invested – and then wish the director and the playwright had better helped the actors with some pruning.

But it is shocking how a portrait of the hopes and dreams of low-income Black people created more than two decades ago still strikes us as a persistent challenge, hardly dented by any efforts to improve the situation.

The play’s maturity is reflected in the sense of dread that hangs over the audience as Thyme’s due date comes closer, but the playwright had the wisdom to mix our dread with reminders of almost celestial optimism.

Next Act tends to attract a socially conscious audience – many elderly on the afternoon I went – though the play toys with the exuberant hope of youth struggling to remain confident in an environmentally poisonous world.

The acting styles needed in this barrage of ideas and emotional shifts would destroy more seasoned performers. The challenge is how to talk constantly to each other and often directly toward the audience while keeping the humanity of the characters at the forefront. While the play it too long and sometimes tries to artificially force our involvement, it is rewarding for those who listen carefully and accept the human intentions underneath the density.

Splash Hatch on the E Going Down Gallery

Dominique Paul Noth served for decades as film and drama critic, later senior editor for features at the Milwaukee Journal. You’ll find his blogs here and here.