Vineyard Gazette

Mojo Is Knowing When to Stay, When to Let Go of a Love Lost

by Holly Nadler

Remember that old 1950s TV show that posed the question, “Can this marriage be saved?” presenting his story, her story and a wrap-up by an expert? Most marriages hit rough spots, and when the subjects share their gripes, the listener find himself or herself silently asking the above question.

In 5 Mojo Secrets, currently running at the Vineyard Playhouse, playwright and poet Kathleen McGhee-Anderson invokes a whisper of that ancient program (originally a Ladies Home Journal column), except that McGhee-Anderson’s presentation lies on the opposite spectrum of storytelling known as Art. Using soliloquies, flashbacks, poetry and a love affair with language itself, she lets us in to the darkest secrets as well as the purest inspiration.

In a recent phone interview, Ms. McGhee-Anderson said, “As you listen to the two characters relate their versions of the marriage from different points of view, the audience can weigh and evaluate the relationship. Is it a good idea to salvage this marriage? There is so much gray material to it, and yet you want it to work.”

The human spirit is an optimistic entity. The human spirit wants another couple’s marriage to work. But this same spirit can wither within a marriage, and it is this poignant tendency that Ms. McGhee-Anderson investigates to its logical or illogical — depending on one’s point of view — conclusion.

Ricardo Khan directs, having overseen more than 50 professional productions, including Fly at the Lincoln Center and here on the Vineyard. He’s won numerous awards and honorary degrees and serves as artistic director of the nationally acclaimed Crossroads Theatre Company of New Brunswick, N.J.

Another key figure in this production is Brooklyn-based actor John Douglas Thompson, long considered one of America’s top Shakespearean actors. His early childhood was more nomadic than Oliver Twist’s: He was born in Bath, England, his parents were Jamaican and, after they’d fully experienced the UK, they moved to Montreal. Mr. Thompson graduated from LeMoyne College in Syracuse in 1984, briefly groomed himself to be a computer salesman, then gave in to deeper desires and enrolled in Trinity Repertory Conservatory in Providence.

After triumph after triumph in Broadway roles, in 2005 he returned to the country of his birth to debut as Flavius with Denzel Washington in Julius Caesar with the Royal Shakespeare Company. Back in the States in 2007, he starred in Cyrano de Bergerac with Jennifer Garner and Kevin Kline.

He is especially thrilled by a new group forming with his participation, Theatre for a New Audience, situated in downtown Brooklyn next door to the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Location, location!

The list of accomplishments goes on, and continues to impress, but for the moment, Mr. Thompson is excited to be here on the Vineyard, and performing in 5 Mojo Secrets. “I loved the script the minute I read it,” he said over the phone.

Mr. Douglas has been in continuous awe of the exciting work discovered and rolled out each summer by artistic director of the Vineyard Playhouse, MJ Bruder Munafo. His respect is unbounded for director, Mr. Khan, and he compliments his costar in 5 Mojo Secrets, Suzzanne Douglas, as “the loveliest woman I’ve ever worked with.”

Award-winning actress Ms. Douglas is best known for her role as the matriarch in the TV sitcom, The Parent ’Hood. She has appeared in many movies, including Tap, How Stella Got Her Grove Back, Jason’s Lyric and, our own homegrown movie (albeit filmed on an unspecified beach lined with palm trees), The Inkwell. She has a home on Chappaquiddick, her husband is an MD radiologist, and together they have one daughter.

In this production, 5 Mojo Secrets is accompanied by Eric Johnson, bass player, who musically reflects on the action, the poetry and the story taking place. Recorded music fuses with the flashbacks, and a screen with rotating images comments on the passage of time. A short video provides a coda to the end. This is definitely theater at its most innovative.

Originally set to end by now, this fifth piece in a month-long African American Theater Festival which included Opera Noire at the Union Chapel last weekend, has been extended for a final weekend run.