What becomes of a person under so much pressure they’re in danger of getting crushed like a soda can? What happens when someone burns the candle at both ends, right down to the middle? Woolly Mammoth’s new production, The Sensational Sea Mink-ettes, explores how stress and expectations of perfection play out among members of a step dance team at an unnamed HBCU, and it does so in ways that are affecting, hilarious, and completely unexpected.
The play opens on the women arriving for a typical day of rehearsal for the upcoming big homecoming showcase, and from the second they step onstage, each character is a fully formed person wonderfully embodied by the cast. It’s instantly clear where each woman stands in the pecking order, and how she relates to the others. Team captain Shanteé (Billie Krishawn) works her crew hard, takes no bullshit, and does it all while dressed in perfectly color-coordinated workout outfits. Raquel (Kalen Robinson) and Gabby (Khalia Muhammad) are an irrepressible dynamic duo who can’t stop cutting up or composing original tracks about “murdering pussy.” Maya (Kimberly Dodson) is a stressed out senior, splitting her time between her thesis project, grad school applications, and the step team. Aleyse (Lauren Fraites) is a freshman and a third-generation Sea Mink-ette dancer, struggling mightily with the moves and unlikely to carry on the family legacy. Kiera (Sabrina Lynne Sawyer) is a bit of an odd woman out, friendly with everyone but often quietly observing or offering up philosophical musings.
The Sensational Sea Mink-ettes makes for a perfectly compelling study of women’s friendships and rivalries, but it also shows how Black women are so often required to keep pushing, work harder, and be strong no matter what. The jokes fly fast, as do the emotions, and the show treads the line between comedy and drama. It would be a great play even if the focus was solely on the daily lives of the Mink-ettes and their homecoming preparations, but thrillingly, the story doesn’t just take a turn, but rather spirals off into a totally surprising direction.
A subtle foreboding pervades the play: Team members drop out without explanation, stadium lights flicker and hum, no one from the college administration is returning the captain’s calls, and on top of that Aleyse is still off beat. Kiera is fixated on Beyoncé, and not in the way that the average listener is: She suggests that the singer might actually run the world, or that she has something sinister going on. “You look in her eyes and she’s smiling, but you can tell she’s thinking about decapitation,” Kiera worries at one point.
Things start to unravel, quite literally in the case of the dance uniforms that just came back from the cleaners, and metaphorically in the case of the team member’s mental states. As the show progresses, the dancers become exhausted physically, emotionally, and perhaps even cosmically. Ignoring her cellphone, which would be ringing off the hook if it were a landline, Shanteé says, “I can’t pick up, it’s just going to be somebody who needs something.” There are two locations for the play: the towering backdrop of the bleachers where the Mink-ettes practice, and a dark and mysterious liminal space, whose exact location is best left unexplained. When the stadium lights blow out completely, the dancers are forced to navigate the total darkness by cellphone flashlights, an effect that is mirrored later in this liminal space.
At less than 90 minutes with no intermission, the play is plotted with the tightness that Shanteé aims for in her routines, and not a second is wasted. Though this production is far from a musical, there are some tantalizing glimpses of the Mink-ettes routine, choreographed by Ashleigh King, as well as a brief marching band interlude, though the full routine remains frustratingly out of grasp for the team and the audience. Kiera would probably remark that these ladies are trying their best to get in formation, but another Beyoncé lyric provides a grim warning that captures the deliciously crooked turns of this production: “Slay trick, or you get eliminated.”
The Sensational Sea Mink-ettes, written by Vivian J.O. Barnes and directed by Taylor Reynolds, runs through March 3 at Woolly Mammoth. woollymammoth.net. $25–$89.