The closing segments of The Heiress are magical. The audience so admires Catherine Sloper (Chenaye Gaston), who plays the title role, that each stage in her personal growth is greeted with increasingly louder noises of encouragement.
This alone merits attending the performance, which the African Grove Theatre of California State University is presenting through tonight at the RJR Black Box on the campus of Reynolds High School.
The Heiress was written by Ruth and Augustus Goetz, with direction by Donis Leonard. It was part of Cal State’s Black History Month celebrations this past spring before the National Black Theatre Festival brought it to the current festival.
The Heiress is set during the 1890s in the fashionable New York home of Dr. Austin Sloper, who is played by festival veteran Vincent Conard. The play recounts what happens when Austin’s daughter Catherine falls for Morris Townsend (Charles Snyder), a poor fortune hunter. Austin believes that Morris is trying to marry Catherine for her money. She believes he is doing so out of love.
Conard brings considerable range and insight to his portrayal, tickling the collective funny bone with often-nutty humor and making us wince at the cruelty of the criticisms of his daughter. The rest of the cast is strong, though Snyder could have delivered some of his lines with greater clarity.
The Heiress rests on an intriguing premise, namely using the all-black Sloper family to retell the story in Henry James’ novel Washington Square. This may seem like a stretch, at least initially. But Leonard said in a university press release that he chose to go with the nontraditional cast after doing research on Daniel Hale Williams, a black doctor who is reported to have performed the first successful open-heart surgery in the United States. Good call.
■ Ken Keuffel can be reached at 727-7337 or at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
■ The New African Grove Theatre of California State University Dominguez Hills will present The Heiress at 3 and 8 today in the RJR Black Box, 301 N. Hawthorne Road. Admission is $25. Call 723-7907 to order tickets.