On the Billie’s “Fabulation” Revival: It’s Fabulous, and a “Best” in All Categories

by Bernice Elizabeth Green
The Billie Holiday Theatre’s revival of two-time Pulitzer winner Lynn Nottage’s “Fabulation, or The Re-Education of Undine,” is so good that even the scenery and moving props should “walk” away with an award.

We went to the theatre to see how the great scribe-playwright and wordsmith fashioned two words Undine (after Ondine, a water nymph) and fabulation of Undine into a full-length play with plot for Black characters.

And we were captivated by that and more, the brilliant cast, featuring stunning supporting actors, a kind of Greek Chorus to the story of the title-role character.
In the shared title role are actress Felicia Curry (through May 6) and Kedren Spencer (who picks up the baton, performing, from May 7 – May 19). The supporting cast includes Evander Duck Jr., Alex Gibson, Sharon Hope, Mariyea, Roland Lane, Tito Livas, James A. Pierce III and Kimberlee Walker.

Now, in its 20th anniversary year, the play tells the story of Undine Barnes Calles, a fierce careerist, sharp businesswoman and hot-shot owner of a top public relations firm, who grew up on the other side of town in public housing, loses “everything” when her husband disappears with her bank account, and everything else.

Her friends abandon her, she discovers she’s pregnant, and she has only one option: to go back where she came from her. And when she does, she’s not exactly welcome.

In the hands of another, the play would drift into melancholia and soap opera drama, sudsing with all kinds of allusions to “comeuppance” and “morality” and ‘melodrama” and getting punished. Fabulation, after all is a Nottage play with storyline twists and turns like you’ve never experienced before.

Yet, it is Martavius Parrish’s excellent direction of a superb ensemble cast that brings Nottage’s words to life and makes those words dance. There is not a weak portrayal in this revival. The supporting actors mesmerized, even when standing still, or in the midst of Tutsi high-jumping or low-to-the- flo’ undulating. Actresses who portrayed the girlz-on-the-block, showed up in some scenes as down-home elder-lady roles, later in the script.

The actor who portrayed the money-grabbing cad of a Romeo husband, portrayed, in other scenes, the nice guy Undine, the entrepreneur, would never have looked at twice, but once Undine returned home (and herself) she did. The point is: Parrish made it work, possibly beyond its first incarnation, and right down to scenery and all its uses.

Something we, as playgoers, never imagined we would see at a small theatre, outdoing Broadway. Simple yet magical. So much so we still don’t want to know how the scenic designer and Parrish made it work.

Others behind the scenes deserving credit include Ama McNeil, Lighting; Christopher Vergara, costumes; German Martinez, sound; Nikiya Mathis, make-up, and hair (wait till you see the transformative wig work Ms. Mathis does for Undine); Karen Thornton, Movement (Beautiful!) and Miranda Holliday, dramaturgy.

And Our Time Press congratulates Billie executive director Shadawn Smith, coming up on her 1st year of joining the theatre. Smith oversaw everything and made it all work.
Our Time was well spent viewing this production with other pleased theatregoers.
The Billie Holiday Theatre, 1368 Fulton Street. Tickets: $60. For more information: visit eventbrite.com/e/fabulation-or-the-re-education-of-undine-tickets-861921700007