Determined Not to Live the Same Old Story
Alexis SoloskiOctober 21, 2014: Tray, a high school senior in Brooklyn, is struggling with a scholarship essay. His tutor wants him to describe the challenges he’s faced. Tray resists. “Poor black boy from the violent ghetto,” he says. “That ain’t my life. Ain’t gon be my life.” The tragedy of Kimber Lee’s plaintive brownsville song (b-side for tray) is that Tray (Sheldon Best) has so little life left. A loving big brother, a dogged amateur boxer and an exuberant, impetuous teenager, he’ll be killed — thoughtlessly, almost casually — soon after he finishes that essay. Ms. Lee’s moving if somewhat predictable play, directed by Patricia McGregor and produced by LCT3, means to make Tray’s death more than just “a few damn lines in the paper.” The drama moves back and forth in time, vaulting from the weeks and months before Tray’s shooting to its aftermath. Before his death, Tray lives with his strict, loving grandmother, Lena (Lizan Mitchell), and his quirky kid sister, Devine (Taliyah Whitaker). (While all the other girls in her creative-dance class twirl and flutter as swans, Devine sways in the background as a weeping willow.) Tray’s stepmother, Merrell (Sun Mee Chomet), a former addict, abandoned the family. Looking for a way to return, she’s offered to help him with his college essays.
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