“You are the ones who sold us into slavery!” shouts Bay Area lawyer Harold Lawson, at multi-millionaire Nigerian Ken Ogunde at the end of Act 1 in “African Stew.” It’s a startling, provocative moment in Lisa B. Thompson’s family drama, which is now a rolling world premiere at San Francisco’s Lorraine Hansberry Theatre.
The fiery topic could be a fascinating one to dive into. But, disappointingly, Thompson doesn’t go there.
Instead, the play explores the cross-class and cultural dynamics of a young couple — Julie Lawson (Sundiata Ayinde), who’s from a Black intellectual Oakland family, and Ken (Titus VanHook), a local doctor from an elite, even royal, Nigerian family.
The couple, who are madly in love after knowing each other for 10 months, are hosting a dinner for the parents of each couple where they will all meet for the first time. Julie is frenziedly cooking an elaborate Nigerian dinner in honor of Ken’s parents.
The initial, dinnertime meeting of two sets of parents from differing backgrounds is a familiar framework for light, socially conscious comedy. But it’s also a good premise for a complicated drama, one that could go beyond predictable familial conflict while also leaving space for inadvertent comedy.
But Thompson’s writing is surface-level, mentioning a variety of loaded topics while never fully committing to them.
Instead, there’s a lot of inevitably funny material that’s pretty old hat.
For example, audiences may foresee that Julie’s dinner turns out inedible. And right at the beginning Julie discovers she’s pregnant. But she has no time to tell Ken with all the cooking she’s determined to do and guests arriving early, a premise that likely leads to fireworks.
When Ken’s Nigerian parents arrive, Lola, the mother (Jeunée Simon), is unsurprisingly dressed elegantly and stalks around with a forced smile, surveying the young couple’s tiny apartment with raised eyebrows.
And Julie’s mother (Margo Hall) is of course just the opposite: a free spirit in a bright orange caftan, immediately annoyed by Lola’s haughty and critical attitude.
The husbands, both self-important, immediately clash. Ken’s father Baba (ShawnJ West) initially seems to be avuncular, but his prejudices and elitism quickly appear (“I feel California wines lack complexity,” he says, presenting his hosts with an elegant bottle from France). Julie’s Dad, Harold (Ron Chapman), is immediately reactive to Baba’s snootiness.
This is where the script reaches beyond formula to hint at a deep divide — perhaps a mix of ignorance, prejudice, and innate class conflict between the American Black family and the ultra-rich Nigerian family.
The characters as written seem one-dimensional. The actors, who usually do good work, had some hammy performances under the direction of Edris Cooper-Anifowoshe. There’s a lot of time spent on Julie’s frantic cooking efforts, time that could be used for discussing real issues that are skirted around and hinted at but never get their due.
The drama presents a question: Can the divide ruin the love between a young couple such as Julie and Ken?
But with no true digging into the question, audiences can predict the answer from the beginning — it can’t split them apart. This trying-hard-to-be-funny love story misses a good opportunity to explore deeper subjects, such as when romantic couples must contend with cultural and class divides between their families.
Lorraine Hansberry Theatre’s “African Stew” runs through Sept. 27 in Landmark Building D, Fort Mason, 2 Marina Blvd., San Francisco. Tickets are $35 – $65 at lhtsf.org/african-stew.
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