Malcolm Mays on Sacrifice, Dramaturgy, and the Importance of Environment in ‘The Brothers Size’ (extended cut)
in conversation with Korinn Annette Jefferies of The Black Drama School (theblackdramaschool.org)
there are so many things I wish I would have asked in this interview, but conversations like these are only the beginning.
conversations like these are a catalyst for expansive, text-centered conversations within Black theatre.
I started re-reading The Brothers Size for the third time two days before this interview. I was in the process of preparing a conference presentation, a ‘Theatre for Social Change’ teen intensive, and a new syllabus for The Black Drama School— I was generally overwhelmed and welcoming the escape that comes with reading a well crafted play.
but perhaps reading the play in this state gave me a different view on Elegba, the character Malcolm Mays will be playing in The Brothers Size at The Shed alongside André Holland (‘Ogun Size’) and Alani iLongwe (‘Oshoosi Size’) this Fall.
perhaps, in this state, I didn’t feel like being challenged with a riddle.
perhaps, my patience for Elegba’s games may have been lower than usual.
Korinn Annette Jefferies: each time I read this piece, Elegba seems more and more insidious— how do you go about playing the villain?
Malcolm Mays: Well, to be completely honest, I never thought of him as a villain. I think of him as a catalyst and maybe an antagonist—which doesn't necessarily mean villain. I think an antagonist is someone who just antagonizes the situation. Which, ironically, is the reason that our lead character gets to go on his journey towards freedom. Like he's he literally is accelerated towards— you know, despite a negative event— stepping out into the world in a way that he was never fully confident in doing.
So, in my opinion, I’ve never looked at Elegba like a bad person, I think Elegba is just who he is. You can't blame a lion for being a lion. You can't blame, you know, a dog for being a dog. Elegba is instinctually a shyster, a finesser, a criminal, a hood nigga like, he all them things, but more than anything, he's in love with this man.
I don't think he fears going back to prison with the person he loves. And I also don't think he necessarily wanted to get him in trouble. Even in the folklore of Yoruban mythology, Elegba is the crossroads. You can't get mad at the crossroads for being the crossroads. It's just a fork the road, man. He's just a fork in a road. He ain't never pretending to be nothing another more than that.
Korinn: I looked at [the end of the play] as the separation of family, so I looked at it as more of a negative— or not negative— but just a sadder ending than what I’m hearing you say.
MM: Well it is sad. Childbirth is violent— it’s also beautiful. Things can exist on a multi-layered plane. Nothing is mutually exclusive. It’s especially not in a [Tarell Alvin McCraney] play, right?
That freedom/that exodus is heartbreaking cause the moment that Ogun finally is able to see, accept, and fully show, and express his love for Oshoosi, he has to let him go. It is heartbreaking. You're absolutely right. It's also beautiful because that's the only way Oshoosi was going to go. And he needed to go.
He needed to go find him in another place.
“[Eshu/Elegba]” enables communication with deities and delivers sacrifices to other orishas.”
Korinn: this also reminds me of the story that's told about Oya cutting off her ear and that sacrifice in showing that you love someone. I see that from Ogun’s perspective. [I see him sacrificing in that way.] do you feel like there's something that Elegba sacrifices to show his love for Oshoosi?
MM: I think the highest form of love— the top tier form of love— is the love of the creator/is the love of Oshun/is the love of a woman and their child. Which is sacrifice, right? And so I think that I wouldn't say that Elegba loves Oshoosi in the best, highest form that love that exist—but I can recognize that somebody's inability to express or show love in a proper way doesn’t mean that they don't love the person. It just means they don't know how to do it right. And I think that Elegba is the classic case of someone who loves somebody, but just don't know how to do it right.
And by the way, I won't even say that he was wholly wrong in how he loved, because he was pushing Oshoosi to get the car he wanted/to strike out/to go out there and not forget the desires he had—that he pined for— the late nights while they were locked up. That's someone who loves you, and that's the proper way to love somebody.
“Hey, remember what you wanted, remember what you said.” And Elegba went and essentially stole a car or whatever he did to get our guy what he wanted—a sense of freedom— even in a domestic sense.
The parable of Oya… [is] indicative of how Ogun views love as well, because Ogun had empathy for her actions of sacrifice. He was like, “They think that she's crazy, but she's not crazy. She's just in love. She's just hurt,” right? And Ogun literally has to cause that same separation with his brother, in the end. That was his version of separation. He didn't just do it as a symbol he did it because it relinquished his brother from what he felt he was tied to.
Elegba did not make that sacrifice but he did, in fact, go out there and risk his freedom— which I don't know how much he values it— but he risked his freedom to make sure that Oshoosi got that call. And I think that that's a small token. I don't know if it's a major sacrifice, but I do think he loved him. So I don't know if he he had the Oya level love/I don't know if he had the highest purest form of love/maternal love, but I do think he had a love, and he tried his best to express it.
MM: He just can't get right.
Korinn: most of my research lately has been about Black family dramas— would you consider this a Black family drama?
MM: Of course, 100%
Korinn: are these characters stock characters in Black families?
MM: Uh, possibly. Yeah, you got the responsible brother or the responsible older child with the irresponsible younger child, and then you have the the Jazzy Jeff character— your antagonistic, supporting character who is everything that maybe the character he's friends with is not. You could find stock characters for sure. I don't know if they're just exclusive to Black family dramas, but they are there. They are very present.
Korinn: color is semi-explicit in the character descriptions, right? and I think if it’s cast correctly you can see it onstage, but it's not something that an audience is made explicitly aware of unless they've looked at the script or are considerate of those sorts of things. is there any consideration on your end as an actor as to what that means for the relationships between characters?
MM: I think it’s so beautifully etched into the text that if you’re honoring the text as much as you can, you have no choice but to have it be there.
So, I think that it's just kind of naturally comes out with how they interplay and interact. Ogun’s resentment for Elegba, because Elegba just kind of is like a sprite. He has the freedom/luxury of being this kind of irresponsible, chaotic, mercurial character, partially due to whatever privilege he's received as an attractive light skinned brother in New Orleans in that time period, right? Because of that colorism privilege.
And Ogun has not. Ogun had a hard life. And Ogun is very hard because of it, right? He's received very little privilege. And so, of course, there's a resentment there that plays out in the relationship. But Elegba —much like people who are privileged— he don't understand why Ogun hate him so much.
So I think it ends up coming out if you if you stick close to the writing.
I didn't have to make the conscious choice really to play the colorism of the piece. I simply had to exist as a character who had the implication of colorism already present.
when I think about the implications of colorism onstage, I think about On Strivers Row by Abram Hill and the staging of colorism as a direct reflection of the text.
I think about Hamilton and the color play between the lighter skinned Alexander Hamilton and the dark skin Aaron Burr, both of who were— historically and quite literally— white.
what happens when character descriptions or other textual evidence is not upheld in the casting process— does it change the story? what happens when the traditional casting (though ‘colorblind’) is implicitly colorist?
what effects does the visual of colorism have on an audience and how does it alter the overall understanding of a dramatic work?
Korinn: I'm curious how you went about the Yoruba cosmology aspect of this piece. I’m sure you learned a lot working with [Tarell Alvin McCraney and Bijan Sheibani], but on your end, were you personally motivated to [study that] or was it a task that was given to you?
MM: Not only did I want to, I had everything of access to me. We had everything we could have wanted and needed. We had a dramaturg there, we had an intimacy coordinator there, we had the writer there— it was literally more like an intensive than it felt like a play that was being put on for money.
Korinn: do you think that this piece could be done without a dramaturg?
MM: Yeah, but it would take a really, really high level company to still extract the necessary nuance, because this is top tier/god tier/S level/S tier level difficulty. There's body/there’s movement/there’s song/there’s dance/there’s love/there’s life/there's dense dialogue. It is iambic pentameter, but it is for Black people— not even for Black people—it is just its own rhythm of speech. Just like August Wilson has its own rhythm of speech. It is its own piece. Unique in itself— wholly unique in itself.
Between time and breadth of knowledge, I wouldn't want to do it without a dramaturg. But if you did do it without a dramaturg, you’d need more time with the material, or you'd have to just have that kind of brain, which you know, godspeed to you, you know what I mean? But, yeah, I do think it can be done, but I just think, why would you? Why would you? Why walk when you could drive, you know?
Korinn: in your work with the dramaturg, how much did you all consider the impact of environment being that this is taking place in the Bayou in Louisiana?
MM: I think it just kind of ended up being that we want to honor the material as best we can. And if we get there, we get there. But Tarell was more like, “Whatever's gonna bring the truth. I don't want something that you’re trying to do to get in the way of the truth of the piece.”
But it affected the clothing, the design, the music, the colors. We really wanted to access that early 2000s/New Orleans, Bayou/urban culture.
So it did. It did. But it wasn't explicit. It did— to answer your question specifically— the environment did influence what we did as far as our language and as far as our clothes, costume design, and movement, body movement, everything but it wasn't a mandate. It's something that we took up as we proceed.
Korinn: do you think that a director could direct this piece and set it somewhere else?
MM: Yes, I do. I don't know if it would have the same punch, but they would have to make it culturally specific and draw those parallels for that specific place, because there's something mythological and spiritual and otherworldly up about the Bayou in New Orleans. There's so much association with voodoo, and Yoruban culture, and Pan Africanism, and Black Americanism, all wrapped up in this weird place that has a spiritual identity beyond itself. You know what I mean? It's wild.
So you'd have to have somewhere that is just as rich. But yes, it could be anywhere, USA. I mean, the story plays itself. It’s such a beautiful, constructed story. You could do it in a white suburb. Do I think it would have the same spiritual impact? I don't know. I don't think so. But it would be a full story. It'd be like making The Lion King as a CGI story versus making the original Lion King— having the essence and purity of a story. It loses its essence.
But if you did it in a Floridian bayou or somewhere where there is black ancestral fatigue built into the sand and the construction of the environment, then, yeah. Because it contained the spirits that we are dealing with.
Cause superficially, this is a story about a brother and another brother, and he's wrestling with whatever, right? You can do that anywhere. But the reason this is a piece of literary genius is because it's about a struggle of the gods—our gods, right? I don't know if you do that anywhere else, unless it's got that same level of depth registering spiritual richness.
Korinn: yeah, when you were saying Florida, the first place that I thought was, like, Broward County or something like that.
thinking about Tarell Alvin McCraney and what the actual script looks like, I've noticed that a lot of contemporary playwrights leave [so much] out of the script in contrast to older playwrights/[playwrights of the 19th century]. [playwrights of the early to mid 19th century] were very descriptive in stage directions [detailing] exactly what needed to be on the stage.
in this piece, there’s a lot that's left up in the air if you're just reading the script.
if you were to take the script yourself— and you didn't have a dramaturg and you were just like, reading it through—what would be your approach to that as an actor?
MM: It depends on what am I doing it for. Do I have a unique vision when I read it that calls out a different perspective out of my own essence and spiritual relationship with this piece? And is that gonna be at the forefront of what I'm creating? Or am I so in love with what the author has created and what I've seen or heard previously that I will... seek out to make sure I'm being truthful to the original [piece]?
It would depend on how the material hit me personally. I could have set this in South Central, you know, to make it more true to me, more personal and Tarell would have let me, right? Because there's there's a whole, you know, history and lineage of Black pain and love in Los Angeles since the 50s and 40s, since the great migration from the South to here. There’s a transition/there’s a space/there’s rooms for our gods. There’s something fresh about being introduced to Yoruban gods and in my environment.
So there's all types of perspectives that could have been taken, I probably would have taken that one to make it more personal/to focus on the characters more and not be distracted by the environment, and trying to get it right, and go to something that I know intimately, so I could make that authentic and then focus more on character— personally. But there's something beautiful about doing it in a place that you're not from, that forces you to look at it with a fresh perspective. So it would have depended where my heart was at, where I am in life.
I think that different variations of it have been done in different forms in so many places, because it's such a pervasive play. It's propagated through the culture.
But if you really love the original piece, I would suggest getting real deep into what the author's intent was— if you're gonna do something true to the original intent. And you're gonna need a dramaturg, fa sho.
Korinn: yeah. love a dramaturg.
MM: Fa sho. Love a dramaturg.
Korinn: in my copy of the script, it lists Robert O'Hara as the director for the world premiere of The Brothers Size in Princeton, NJ. I know that I know that the playwright worked with the director, Bijan Sheibani in early productions as well. I'm curious about a director's relationship to the characters by way of representation, I.e. Robert O'Hara being a Black gay man and [Bijan not having that life experience.] thinking about how that may impact directing a work— do you think that there's any value to that?
MM: Of course, of course there's value, because the perspective is unilateral. For me, I usually say this: If you're going to tell the story that is specific of somebody else's culture—that you are not native to—well, then … you better have an anthropological level interest in reflecting something that you know you are not necessarily a part of and be humanist enough, and beautiful in spirit enough, and open enough, to bring in the voices that you are not natively, while also still retaining your own perspective.
But it's funny, because Bijan… has the level of openness and vessel like behavior… because he's not only a seeker of truth, he's a craftsman of the highest caliber and he knows when to resonate common human feelings in a very specific environment. And he brings in our voices to bring authenticity to the piece. And you can be a great director and have a forced perspective on a piece. But I think that it takes a very unique, special high level storyteller to have an experience that you are not from and do what he does to bring it to [stage].
And I wouldn't take it on if I wasn't his level of talented, and I wouldn't suggest it for a lot of people personally. Not because I think that we should limit people, but just because often, when it is done, it is not done to the caliber or level of which I've seen it done by Bijan. He’s unique in that. He's one of one in that.
And that's why Tarell keeps using him.
That's why they keep using each other.
MM: That's why they're co-directing this new one at The Shed in New York— which you guys should come out to.
Korinn: I think it’s clear that all the characters have had some experience with incarceration to some degree. I feel like there's a weight with that—just how the play ends and how it starts and the things that are touched on throughout/the whole thing.
MM: Yeah, so I'm a big anti-recidivist activist. Like, that's my journey because of my own personal relationship with the system itself. I loved that I was doing this play because it was the first time in a long time that my politics got to converge with my storytelling. So it became very personal for me.
Also, the effects of incarceration and recidivism… they don’t [usually] get explored with that much nuance. I even have a film project that I wrote called ‘Program’ that is literally about recidivism and the effects of recidivism on a person, being incarcerated, being isolated, being put in solitary confinement—which is inhumane—and then having to come home and interact with the world, right? I made the psychological effects quite literal in a horror presentation. And I was rewriting it at the same time that I was doing the play. So for me, it was like right on par.
Being able to explore …
How [incarceration and recidivism] affects different people differently, how for [Elegba]… that isolation protected him from the outside world and put him in close proximity with someone that he rang true in alignment with, whether it was romantically, sexually, whatever it was, they got to be who they were in that safe space.
And then, for [Oshoosi], it was hell because he had to shut off parts of him, to exist in that space, or exist differently in that space just to survive.
And then the effect it had all the people outside who had someone incarcerated themselves, and how that affected their relationship, and [Ogun] having to learn what it was really like from his brother cause he never could understand.
… Those are the kind of things that I think make for a three dimensional/four dimensional piece. I really love that it was addressed [in the story], yet we never went to prison. It's all about the effects of prison. We didn't make a prison story, cause it's not about the isolation itself, it's about the effects it has on the human being. And I think that that's why the piece is so elevated, and so unique.
Korinn: so you don't think Ogun had any firsthand experience with being incarcerated?
MM: In my opinion, and not from any of the dramaturgical explorations we've done, no. But, that don't mean it's not true. It just means that my interpretation of what Ogun has—and I haven't seen anything explicitly in the text at least, and if I'm wrong, please correct me. Ogun was the kid who did everything right, because he had to. And he felt like it was a part of his identity, which made him resent his brother, I think, in my opinion. You know how you have the brother that's like, super square and you have the brother that's super not. I think that Ogun was the super square brother.
Korinn: there is something he says that made me curious about that:
OGUN SIZE.
You don’t make no friends in the pen. (p19)
Korinn: it just made me wonder like, where do you think he got that from then? like, where did he pull that from if he has not had [that experience]?
MM: Oh, I think he was speaking from ignorance/from the ignorance of someone who hasn't been in the pen. In my personal opinion, I took that as him trying to cause a distance between Oshoosi's old life and the one that he's trying to lead. I think he was being jealous/I think he was being protective—which [are] all Ogun traits… he was operating— much how Ogun does— off of assumptions. He assumes Oshoosi is lazy/he assumes that Oshoosi’s laziness comes from an innate laziness, not from a fatigue with life. He assumes Oshoosi’s decisions are from selfishness, not from a displeasure with his environment, right? Ogun makes assumptions, that’s his fatal flaw. That’s what causes him to push his brother away, and that's why [Oshoosi] ends up embracing Elegba, because the Elegba allows him to be free, allows him to be him, pushes him to search and those faces.
But it's interesting that you picked up on that because how interesting would it be if this whole time Ogun had his own experience in prison that was so completely different than Oshoosi, right? That would be that would add another layer, an interesting layer.
Korinn: yeah, so now I’m wondering, like, if there was another relationship that Ogun had where he had experienced someone else going to prison and that's where he got that from. maybe not even necessarily him going.
MM: I can see that for sure. Maybe that's true. That’d be a different layer. I'm gonna talk to Andre Holland about that.