The First Breeze of Summer

The First Breeze of Summer

Signature Theatre Company

New York

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Leslie Lee’s compelling play, first staged in 1975 by the Negro Ensemble Company, “reminds us that black theater doesn’t begin and end with August Wilson,” said Frank Scheck in the New York Post. Lucretia Edwards, the elderly matriarch of a middle-class Philadelphia family, gathers with her progeny at the home of son Milton. During her visit, she recalls her tumultuous love life, and relationships with three very different men. Those affairs—each of which produced a child—have contributed to lasting family tensions, and sins both past and present are not-so-tidily unpacked at mealtimes and during family games of Scrabble. Lee struggles to keep the play cohesive as one issue after another is introduced, but director Ruben Santiago-Hudson here does a fine job reeling in this “sprawling drama” and a talented cast delivers “superb performances.”

It helps to have the savvy veteran Leslie Uggams anchoring the action as Lucretia, said Ben Brantley in The New York Times. Uggams, who made her stage debut in Hallelujah Baby! in the late 1960s, “provides a welcome ballast for a show that never fully weaves its disparate strands into whole cloth.” She’s complemented by the “exquisite form” of Yaya DaCosta, previously known for her turn on the reality show America’s Next Top Model. As the young Lucretia, DaCosta gives a stirring and lovely performance in her New York debut. Together, the two actresses provide a sharp portrait of a woman in the twilight of her life, when “early memories speak loud and clear.”

First Breeze isn’t a perfect play, but it’s a fine example of the works produced by the once-influential Negro Ensemble Company, said Eric Grode in The New York Sun. Formed in 1967, the company was for several years responsible for nurturing “virtually every black stage actor, writer, director, and designer of note,” from Laurence Fishburne to Richard Roundtree to Angela Basset. Signature Theatre deserves plaudits for devoting a season to the works of this 40-plus-year-old troupe. As the season’s opening offering, First Breeze “is as welcome a gift to parched theatergoers as the cool gust that gives the play its name.”