not for review

This is not a review. Dael Orlandersmith's showing of Stoop Stories at Under the Radar is a work in progress and it says right in the program that it is not open to review, but I am signed up to blog it, so hopefully Ms. O will not mind a few non-review words from this humble writer. 

In a festival of multi-layered, multi-media and multi-disciplinary work, it is refreshing to hear this singular voice get back to some of the basics of theatre: language, story and character. Orlandersmith embodies a range of characters from a young African-American child to an elderly Jewish man, delivering their stories simply and compassionately through her voice as a writer and speaker. I imagine from the title that these might be the stories neighbors tell each other on their stoops - individuals striving to connect to the universal. These everyday people share stories of their close brushes with love, death, violence, fame and transcendence, some brief, some epic, all their own window into another human life. 

- Erin from PICA