Taking Over

Written and performed by Danny Hoch
Berkeley Repertory Theater
January 11-February 10, 2008
Directed by Tony Taccone
Scenic and costume design by Annie Smart
Lighting and video by Alexander V. Nichols
http://www.berkeleyrep.org/

“Hip hop theater? So, what’s that all about?” grumbled the aging reviewer on the way to Berkeley Rep. Settling gloomily into her seat, she was half-determined not to like what she was about to see, in the full knowledge that such a stance was antithetical to the Critic’s Code of Honor (as if such creatures as critics even had such a thing). And she couldn’t have been more mistaken.

Danny Hoch’s new one-man show, “Taking Over,” is hilarious, heartbreaking and totally entertaining. This tremendously talented actor/writer creates and, with a quick costume switch, utterly inhabits no fewer than eight different characters in addition to his own confessional monologue in the penultimate scene. Each has his or her (two are women and Hoch does them equally as well as the men) own story but, when you put them all together you get a pretty clear picture of the effects of gentrification on a neighborhood.

In this case the neighborhood is the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, N.Y., long the stomping ground of immigrants, from Italians, Latinos and Poles, to African Americans and Orthodox Jews. It has been an area of violence, drug abuse and crime. Nevertheless, it was home. Now, as Hoch muses in his own persona, there is a Whole Foods on the site where he once witnessed a stabbing victim bleed to death while the police went about other business. No wonder he is having an existential crisis in the artichoke aisle.

Not all the tales are that depressing. In fact, Hoch makes his point mostly with humor, satirizing the developers, realtors and yuppies who are “Taking Over” the old ‘hood as deftly as he skewers the residents – a pretty peculiar lot – themselves. Perhaps the funniest sketch is that of “El Dispatcher,” the Dominican owner of a car service who insults and abuses the lesser creatures, Mexicans and Puerto Ricans, who drive for him. What is so great about this one is that it is entirely in Spanish with translation flashing by on an overhead screen. The only time the guy speaks English is when he’s taking a call from a customer or speaking to his own kids, improbably but perhaps predictably named “Ashley” and “Justin.”

Another character, “Launch Missiles Critical” by name, is a rapper, busily fomenting the revolution in an upscale art gallery. “Franque” is a snooty, sleazy real estate agent, trying to sell the $1 and $2 million condos that are going up. Stuart is one of the developers, multitasking in his onsite penthouse as he barks orders to his secretary, explains the “user-friendly multi-ethnic ambiance” of the place to a local reporter and takes a $350 an hour combined Pilates, yoga and Tai Chi class from his sexy personal trainer. It can’t possibly sound as funny in description as it actually is.
There’s an ex-con who wants to be in the movie that’s shooting on his front doorstep and the neighborhood gossip who has taken to quietly stealing almond croissants from the “reservations only” bistro down the street (being black, she decides she is invisible to the white yuppies in artfully torn blue jeans waiting to get in and she truly loves almond croissants) and young Kaitlin, an NYU dropout who would rather peddle T-shirts on the sidewalk than be stifled by her middle-class parents back in Michigan.

They all are wonderful and, as funny as they are, the sadness creeps in – both in Hoch’s own monologue and in the character of Robert, a Polish grad student who has grown up in Williamsburg and who has a few months to leave the premises, along with his family, to make way for new development. He grabs the microphone for a drunken, profane rant that opens and closes the show and sums up the tragedy of the dispossessed. “We asked for better schools and they gave us muffins.”

Annie Smart’s scenic and costume designs are right on target and the lighting, by Alexander V. Nichols is brilliantly transformative in several of the scenes. Berkeley Rep Artistic Director Tony Taccone directs and Hoch performs the heck out of the thing and, if this is hip hop, bring it on, baby.

Suzanne Weiss