The Orlando Fringe is a cacophonous mix of comedy and drama, silly and serious, uplifting and heartbreaking. I tend to stick to the comedies because I would rather not entertain myself with something that’s sad. So when I go into a drama (or at least a serious show), I go in hard.
So I braced myself and put on my big boy pants when I went into Bobby Lee Blood at the Scarlet Venue (Family Stage) last night (Tuesday, May 21).
I knew what I was getting myself into when I decided to go see it. My friend, Franny Titus, is in it, and while she does great comedy, I know she’s also a Serious Actor (note the capitalization), which meant this was going to be a Serious Play — a meaty role that Serious Actors love to sink their teeth into.
Bobby Lee Blood was written by Kyona Farmer, who is a graduate of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts with an MFA in Dramatic Writing (another indication this was a Serious Play).
As it says on the Orlando Fringe website:
As a child, Naomi Morris did not understand why the people in her small town hated her dad, especially since she loved him so much. When she got older, she found out that her dad was actually a monster mean criminal who murdered someone. Now, she is tormented by thoughts that she may end up just like him… She is his blood. She decides to go back to her small hometown in Chattahoochee, Florida to talk to the people who actually knew her dad. What she is about to discover is going to blow her mind.
Bobby Lee Blood is set in a small Southern Florida during the 1980s and deals with several issues, including identity and mental illness. The gritty, funny, suspenseful show features six actors who will play multiple characters.
A Tale by Two Stories
What I didn’t realize at first is that this play has two casts: one all-Black cast, one all-White cast.
Also starring L’Niarae Blevins (DeeDeeMorris, Alexis Morris, Hotel Attendant, Nurse, and Bad Ass Little Boy’s mother), Cindy Lara (Tabetha, Henrietta, and Josephine), Gadainson Nelson (Bad Ass Little Boy, Jonathan, and Wade).
It started with Emma Jean opening the door to an unseen Naomi, who introduced herself. Emma Jean vacillated between being afraid of Naomi, yelling at her to go away, and wanting to share her memories of Bobby Lee, the man she loved (and hated). But we quickly switched to Naomi’s point of view, where she stepped in and Emma Jean left, and we got the background on Naomi and Bobby Lee Morris, and why Emma Jean was so angry at him.
The story was originally told as a one-woman show, written and performed by Kyona Farmer, but it developed into a multi-cast show. I could still see elements of this in its current iteration, but it still had the one-woman show at its roots: Naomi talked to us to explain what life was like, flashing back to memories of her childhood with her daddy, her grandma, and one little boy who called Naomi a monster.
(At one point, Bobby Lee told the kid’s mom, “I’ll kill that little motherfucker if he steals her bike one more time!” and I believed it.)
We also got to see Naomi grow up and leave Chattahochee, going to the University of Florida, and getting a job as a social worker, before finally starting a (reluctant) relationship with Wade.
And then, without anyone noticing, we switched back to Emma Jean and her stories and recollections, which she was sharing with Naomi — in fact, Naomi disappeared and I realized we hadn’t seen her for almost the entire second half of the show. Emma Jean’s performance was so powerful and I was so enthralled that I didn’t realize Naomi had slipped off-stage.
I loved the entire cast (I especially loved Ryanne’s portrayal of Naomi as a young girl), but it was Joanne Nazaire as Emma Jean who hooked me. She was fearful and angry, but still in love with a man long dead — she was afraid the police or “the people from the hospital” were coming for her daughter, she was angry at the world for everything, and she still had fond memories of the man that everyone else in town hated. I was afraid for Emma Jean and angry on her behalf, and that was all Joanne Nazaire.
The only thing that struck me as a little odd was to see a grown man (Gadainson Nelson) playing the Bad Ass Little Boy. It was a bit shocking to see a 7-year-old with a beard. But then again, this was a cast of six playing 14 roles, so you have to make do with what you can, which means I can stretch my imagination. (Don’t forget, this is being done with two casts, so they probably don’t have the luxury of paying extra actors for one small scene.)
For me, as a dad of two daughters, this was a great story that tells us how much a daughter can love her daddy, no matter who other people think he is. Naomi adored Bobby Lee, no matter what people said, and she loved the time he spent with her. But as she got older, she worried that she would end up like him, so her journey back to Chattahoochee was to make sure she wasn’t.
You just have to go see it yourself if you want to find out what she did.
There are two showings left of Bobby Lee Blood at the Orlando Fringe Festival, so make sure you get there this weekend.
Show times:
- MAY 25, 2024 9.20PM
- MAY 26, 2024 9.15PM
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