Susan Granger’s review of “Skeleton Crew” (Westport Country Playhouse)
As the completion of her “Detroit Project” trilogy, playwright Dominique Morisseau chronicles the final days of a quartet of hard-working employees at a Detroit auto-stamping factory that is rumored to be about to close.
After spending 29 years on the assembly line and eagerly anticipating her pension, Faye (Perri Gaffney) sits at a table in scenic designer Caite Hevner’s realistically detailed break room. She’s the union leader of UAW 167, so she feels entitled to ignore the prominently posted NO SMOKING signs.
Once again chiding her about breaking company rules, the plant foreman Reggie (Sean Nelson), who happens to be the son of Faye’s longtime friend, confides that management has decided to shut down the premises, making her promise not to tell her co-workers they’re going to be laid off.
Enter ambitious Dez (Leland Fowler), who reveals that he’s planning to open his own repair shop. And Shanita (Toni Martin), a very pregnant single mom who relishes what she perceives as her job security: “I love the way the line needs me. You step away, the whole operation shuts down.” Indeed, Shanita confesses that she’s already passed on a job offer she received at a local print store.
And it turns out that Faye, a resilient breast-cancer survivor, is now homeless, living out of her car, sleeping in the break room on cold wintry nights.
But then a series of robberies hits the plant. Suspicion falls on Dez, who is not only hiding a gun but a mysteriously wrapped pouch in his locker.
Dominique Morisseau, who won the 2018 MacArthur “Genius Grant” Fellowship, creates vibrant characters who speak like middle-class African-Americans and, sometimes, their dialect is difficult to decipher. But their tenuous dilemma, set at the height of the economic recession of 2008, is all-too-real. They’re striving for the American dream which now seems out-of-reach.
Director LA Williams has assembled an astute cast of skilled actors who embody their respective frustrations, eliciting compassion in this depressing, albeit authentic social commentary.
Playing in Westport through June 22, tickets are available by calling 203-227-4177 or online at westportplayhouse.org