One Woman Inhabits the Lives and Hair of Many

"Y'all can talk to me," Venus Opal Reese says, in character, after she squeezes a response from the audience. "I keep telling you this is live."

In her one-woman play, Split Ends, Reese, both writer and sole actor, executes a series of monologues as an abused little girl, a frisky old woman, a seductive dancer, a drag queen ("Being a woman is hard work"), and an alcoholic with a dark past, among others. Each character elaborates on the lives of black women in America, using their hair as a metaphor.

In between the monologues, a video of various black women talking about their personal relationship with their hair plays. This feature was wasted, as the theater's sound system had crashed, making the sound out-of-synch with the video.

Performance is the show's strength. Reese speaks through her actions as much as her words. During a scene where a domineering mother punishes her daughter by cutting her hair-Reese plays both characters at once-she, as the girl, gapes as her clipped hair falls down her shoulders. Her tense, shuddering body tells the entire story of that oft-abused child.

The characters stand distinct from one another in behavior, emotion, and voice. Reese's voice ranges from slurred to polished-her Condi Rice-lampoon enunciates every syllable. She stands poised, hands together in one monologue, and stumbling and distraught in the next.

The one grating aspect of the acting emerges during the beginning, when Reese, as a (male) gangster rapper moves her arms like windmills, distracting from her words.

Nonetheless, the overall performance smooths the script's recurrent preachiness. The play, though often humorous, deals with such topics as social domination, alienation, impending death, alcoholism, and child molestation.

"White people ain't the problem-you the problem," Reese tells the audience on two occasions. One of her characters explains, using historical evidence, that blacks have exploited other blacks as much as whites have.

If Split Ends was not funny, the audience would be subjected to repetitive social commentary. But it is both funny and energetic, with a frenzied dance number by the drag queen, the embarrassing arrest of an Angela Davis wanna-be, and audience participation. The weaving of the comedic and the somber captivates on various levels.

The play remains strong throughout, but its end lacks an emotional zenith. By focusing on non-sequitur monologues linked only by theme, it sacrifices a single plot that might have provided clout.