Review: Love, race and a world divided in ‘When Stars Align’ at Odyssey Theatre

When a newly freed plantation slave warns that “the South hasn’t changed that much,” she ain’t just whistlin’ Dixie.

The Civil War and its aftermath provide more than a backdrop for the “Romeo and Juliet”-style historical romance in Carole Eglash-Kosoff’s 2011 novel, “When Stars Align.”

Newly adapted for the stage by Eglash-Kosoff and director John Henry Davis in a handsomely staged and well performed guest production at the Odyssey Theatre, the drama powerfully depicts the nation’s original sin of human beings reduced to property and bred like livestock. The moral questions and heartbreaking consequences it evokes remain very much with us.

SIGN UP for the free Essential Arts & Culture newsletter >>

Playwright Eglash-Kosoff is no stranger to troubled race relations. Last year the Odyssey hosted “The Human Spirit,” adapted from her nonfiction chronicle of a grassroots humanitarian movement during South Africa’s apartheid era. “When Stars Align” hits closer to home, both sociologically and dramatically, with its more focused storyline of a star-crossed romance between a rebellious white tomboy (Haley McHugh) and a black slave (Jason Woods) who turns out to be the illegitimate son of the estate’s degenerate heir (Nick Ballard).

More Creole ingredients in the genetic stockpot cook up well crafted plot twists. However, in trying to adapt a 400-page novel, the approach here is mired in long-form narrative rather than theatrical moments, with all the limitations that entails: a bewildering carousel of subplots and myriad characters who often resort to extensive exposition to summarize events and even their own states of mind (little is left to subtext here).

Trying to cram in a succession of broader historical events further crowds the serviceable melodrama’s natural breathing room. The 1873 massacre at Colfax, La., could easily warrant a play unto itself; instead, the way it’s shoehorned at the end to connect some of the characters comes across as rushed and arbitrary rather than an organic part of the story.

These narrative limitations are all the more reason to appreciate how successfully Davis’ music-infused staging keeps the sprawling story threads in focus and draws vivid, memorable performances from his 14-member cast. The show’s best moments are personal rather than epic -- in particular, the haunting star-lighted tryst between the young lovers, in all its fleeting beauty. Is a more perfect union even possible? Perhaps when stars align, the play answers -- though these days it looks as if it would take a blue moon as well.

“When Stars Align,” Odyssey Theatre, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays, also 8 p.m. Sept. 24 and Oct. 1. Ends Oct. 4. $30. (323) 960-7738 or www.plays411.com/starsalign. Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes.

MORE:

Eerie parallels to today’s workplace pressures, moral choices in ‘50s Serling work

The boomerang generation meets ‘Risky Business’ in Rogue Machine’s ‘Luka’s Room’

‘Shiv’ connects the everyday and the metaphysical at Boston Court