Julia Brothers, Lukey Klein, Richard Brothers, Joy Avigail Sudduth (Photo: Maria Baranova)

Sump'n Like Wings

By Marc Miller

Lynn Riggs, if he's remembered at all today, is remembered as the author of Green Grow the Lilacs, a minor Theater Guild flop of 1931 that achieved unexpected immortality a dozen years later, when Rodgers and Hammerstein turned it into Oklahoma! But Riggs (1899-1954), it turns out, was one interesting dude. Born to a white dad and a part-Cherokee mom, which made him something of an outlier, he was also non-athletic and gay, which made him more of one in the rough-and-tumble environs of Claremore, Oklahoma. That's where many of his almost 30 plays are set, and it's the setting for Sump'n Like Wings, now being given an extremely rare revival by the Mint Theater Company.

Subtitled "A Play in Three Episodes," it's set mostly in the dining room of Claremont's St. Francis Hotel for Ladies and Gents (Junghyun Georgia Lee's set is on the skimpy side). There, locals gather for a hearty meal and gossipy chitchat. They're presided over by Mrs. Baker (Julia Brothers), a maternal sort who at first seems something like Oklahoma!'s Aunt Eller, but will turn out to be edgier than that. (Riggs' stage direction: "She gives the curious impression of being both hard and human at the same time.") Chronically understaffed and pressed for time, she's assisted by her rebellious daughter, Willie (Mariah Lee)-when we first meet Willie, she's screaming repeatedly offstage, seemingly locked in the anteroom by her mom. The hotel side of the operation is run by Mrs. Baker's brother Jim (a gracious Richard Lear), who tries to see the good in people and believes in second chances. Willie, we'll see, will need several.

And that dining room chitchat is in high gear, focusing mainly on Elvie Rapp (Lindsey Steiner), a no-account young thing who was just jailed for theft, managed to break out, and stole the keys and liberated all the (male) prisoners. Elvie's one of the more compelling characters here, so it's a blessing when Mrs. Baker decides to hire her as kitchen help, and a disappointment when she just disappears before the second act and is never heard from again.

But Willie, our protagonist, is plenty interesting enough. Not just a screamer, she's chronically discontented, and we soon find out why: As an attractive young thing in 1913-15 Oklahoma, she has her life choices all laid out in front of her, and they're practically nil. Essentially: Get married, raise chillun. (Riggs, like Hammerstein after him, wrote dialogue phonetically; what with all the "wimmern"s and "fer"s and "cain't"s, dialect director Amy Stoller might have told her cast to go a little lighter.) Small wonder she elects by first scene's end to run off with Boy Huntington (Lukey Klein), the randy young married man who's sweet on Willie, and pretty much every local young gal. Klein has a light, breathy, almost Marilyn Monroe voice that makes me wonder why Boy would have such luck with the ladies. But he's very devoted to Willie, until he isn't.

Mike Masters, Buzzy Roddy, Traci Hovel (Photo: Maria Baranova)

That's part of what Riggs is writing about: man's changeable nature, and how women are stuck with it. What Willie wants is freedom, hence Riggs' title: "They's sump'n in you 'at has to be free-like-like a bird, or you ain't livin," she says, in Riggs-speak. Which she tries to be, never successfully, and men are the reason why. Boy leaves her. Another nameless man, with whom she has an out-of-wedlock daughter, a big deal in 1910s Oklahoma, leaves her. Opting for independence rather than security at home with stern, Christian-in-all-the-wrong-ways Mrs. Baker, she holes up in a seedy boarding house, where both the owner (Mike Masters) and Bill Wade (Andrew Gombas), a slightly more polished version of Oklahoma!'s Jud Fry, woo her in the creepiest possible ways. Lee aptly captures Willie's restlessness, helpless coquettishness, and despair over her lousy lot in life.

The plot isn't all that much, but the characters are, well, characterful, and plain fun to hang out with. Jim plays an extended checkers game with an Arkansan frenemy (Buzz Roddy), for no particular reason except to give us more atmosphere to soak up. Later there's an impromptu party, mainly so neighbor Opalena (Leon Pintel) can give out with a lovely rendition of "The Rosewood Casket." In this time and place, days are long and surprises are few, and one gets the feeling Riggs wants to share his none-too-favorable impressions of home and family more than he desires to make any profound statements.

Joy Avigail Sudduth, Lukey Klein, Julia Brothers, Mariah Lee (Photo: Maria Baranova)

That isn't to say he doesn't make them. He's writing about being on the outside looking in. Willie's baby, it's suggested but not confirmed, is mixed-race. And the otherness she feels, the grasping at a life she can't have and envy for the conventional folk around her who accept their lot, it's very like what Riggs must have felt with his sexuality and unfashionable sensitivity. A subject, by the way, given a thorough going-over in dramaturg Jesse Marchese's long, revealing program note. It mentions a number of other Riggs plays that sound very worth reviving. This one, with busy direction by Raelle Myrick-Hodges (needless crossovers, a pace that feels rather rushed for the gentle material), is more a snapshot of a place lost to time than a riveting drama, but the townspeople of Claremore are good company. And if anybody does look further into the Riggs oeuvre, we hope it's the Mint, a reliable provider of making the past come alive. That's certainly sump'n.

Sump'n Like Wings
At Theatre Row
410 West 42^nd Street
Through November 2, 2024