Neat

Charlayne Woodard's full-length stage monologue of her youthful impressions of her retarded aunt Beneatha, who seems to have perished young when she tried to fly off a precipice, begins at an amazing pitch of energy, which she more amazingly sustains throughout. She enthralls the listener--as writer and performer--with consummate theatricality, expertly orchestrating tensions, rhythms, humor, and pathos. She manages to make experiences peculiar to middle-class African-American Baby Boomers seem familiar to Americans of other backgrounds. LATW's producer/engineer Raymond Guama again gives us impeccable tracks. The overall excellence of this production almost completely obscures its flaws: a manipulative, sentimental script and a performance that almost tries too hard, as if Woodard were auditioning for an important movie role, rather than diverting a paying audience. Y.R. (c) AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine

April 1, 2001
Recorded before a live audience, this one-woman performance piece offers a sensitive portrait of a black girl growing up in a Northern city during the 1950s. She attends every Bat Mitzvah and starts learning Hebrew before she begins searching for her own African roots, is caught up in a high school "race riot," and is singled out by the bad-boy Romeo. But, most importantly, we see her interacting with a retarded aunt, first as a young child delighted with this taller playmate, then as a teenager whose whole status in the world seems threatened when Neat comes to live with her family. This very affective piece is filled with memorable anecdotes, such as the seventh-grader who wants to wear her hair in a flip like all her classmates or her determination never to wear a bra because everyone knows bras make your breasts grow. Woodard goes for the one-liners a little more than necessary, the tape catches the audience laughing on cue, but the pace moves quickly, and the character is believable at each stage of her life. Recommended for all multicultural collections.--Rochelle Ratner, formerly with "Soho Weekly News," New York

Copyright 2001 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.