In The Red and Brown Water

In The Red and Brown Water, played at the Playhouse Theater, was a very enjoyable and humorous play. The main characters Oya, Mama Moja, Shango, Elegba, Aunt Elegua and Ogun Size narrate and act out the story. It is mainly about Oya’s struggles in finding herself, who she is meant to be with, and what running means to her. Throughout the play she comes across hard times in her life and she is unsure of how to handle them. Oya goes from wanting to run for a school, to staying at home with her mom, and then wanting to build a family but unsure of whom that will be with. In the play each character is also the narrator. This works in the plays favor because it adds a little humor to the somewhat serious plot line. Each character narrates when they are coming into the scene, how they are coming into the scene, and sometimes just their next actions. My favorite part about this performance was the humor and differences between the characters. Each had a unique personality and something that separated them from all the others. I felt as if this was a good balance between the funny and more serious characters. The contrast between Shango and Ogun Size seemed very important in this play because it shows the different types of men that Oya is torn between. She has a hard time deciding if she is in love with the nice businessman, or the handsome army stud. Although Shango is not loyal to her, she still has fallen for him. These scenes where Oya shows her love for Shango makes the audience feel bad for Ogun because he truly is in love with her. In the end, Oya does not find herself and what her purpose is, but I do feel like she has learned something very valuable. The end of the play was very surprising and kind of odd. When looking back at the beginning of the play, the opening scene was foreshadowing the end. I think this play was very interesting, and directed very well. The humor and plot line together created an enjoyable play that all could understand. This was not the first theater play that I have seen. I love watching plays on Broadway and have actually seen a play here on the Penn State Campus from a different group of people. This play was much different then the previous one I saw, but I enjoyed this one much more. The actors in this play were very mature and played their part very well. I felt as if I was watching a play with professional actors.  Going into this play I was concerned it was not going to be entertaining and also concerned that the acting would be like the last show I saw on campus. Right from the beginning the play caught my attention and proved my original accusation to be incorrect. After watching this play, I would love to go back and see more and would recommend this play to others everywhere!