1800 Acres

Published Monday 22 September 2008 at 11:00 by Gerald Berkowitz

David Myers’ new play is about culture clash, racism, broken families, mothers and sons, fathers and sons, the lure of fresh beginnings, coffee, cats and the myth of the American West.

It is so overfull of themes, subjects and stray symbolism that it is remarkable that the playwright and director Alex Helfrecht are able to keep it so nearly-coherent in tone and subject as they do.

A rich African-American woman brings her teenage son to a Texas ranch to save him from the New York streets. The landowner she dispossesses resents her while the ranch foreman is drawn to her. The confused boy develops a private religious connection to the land and all four characters have mystical visions of the boy’s father, still alive in New York and for some reason dressed as a cowboy.

It is very much to the credit of author, director and cast that a strong sense of the yearning for place and the persistence of hope that drive all the characters remains the strong backbone of a play that moves uneasily between realism and mysticism and constantly threatens to fly off in different directions.

Cathy Tyson (mother), Tobi Bakare (son), Mark Field (former owner) and Tony Boncza (foreman) may each have a single dominant note to play, but they work hard to keep them all in harmony.