STAGE REVIEW : ‘CHECKMATES’: BATTLES OF THE BLACK MIDDLE CLASS

“The Cosby Show” gives the impression that the black middle class is sitting pretty. The young husband and wife in “Checkmates,” Ron Milner’s provocative comedy at Inner City Cultural Center, would disagree. Their bankbook is upwardly mobile, but their marriage is downwardly mobile.

Syl (Denzel Washington) is in middle-management sales, and Laura (Rhetta Greene) is a buyer for a department store. If only they worked with the same product line, they might pay more attention to each other--in order to make a mutually satisfying sale.

As it is, they spend their rare time with each other in fierce lovemaking or in equally fierce sniping. They don’t have time to relax together.

Their downstairs neighbors and landlords, Frank (Paul Winfield) and Mattie (Gloria Edwards), have plenty of time to relax together--perhaps too much of it, an audience may feel, though Milner clearly doesn’t. One of Frank’s sons has taken over the construction business, and Frank and Mattie now have little to do except remember their youth and cluck over that noisy young pair upstairs.

As Frank and Mattie reminisce, we look behind a screen for glimpses of their salad days. Unlike the younger couple, they faced privation. But some of the stresses on their marriage--racism on the job, sexism at home, sexual temptation--were like those that now beset their younger neighbors.

Yet while Syl and Laura probably won’t celebrate another anniversary, Frank and Mattie have been together 35 years (45 would be more accurate, if the play is set “now,” as the program says; Frank went off to fight World War II after he married Mattie. But then who’s counting?).

Milner shows how the times have changed, as a way of understanding his younger couple. But he isn’t satisfied with his own explanations, nor with a philosophical shake of the head. Behind this play is the heartfelt concern that today’s young blacks sacrifice too many of the old values on their way to the top.

Watch Syl in action, as he hustles his customers and colleagues. He modifies his voice and manner with each new phone call, in order to make the other guy feel more at home, in order to make himself sound less black--unless, of course, the other guy is black. Washington is a whiz with these scenes.

We see that Frank also faced the problem of adjusting to the white man’s world. But eventually he went into business for himself. Syl wouldn’t think of making such a move, as long as the money keeps coming--yet he pays a price for it.

The two men share a terrific scene late in Act II. Though their wives have talked long before this, it’s probably realistic that it would take longer for the men to let down their guard. But Winfield and Washington work so well together that one wishes they could meet earlier in the play.

It’s not that Milner values economy of expression above all else--the play’s length approaches three hours. Maybe he should trim some fat from the older couple’s scenes.

When Laura expresses her admiration for Mattie’s marriage, Mattie replies: “You see the parade. What you didn’t see was the war.” We see flashbacks to that war, but they’re safely set in the past. Either there should still be a few skirmishes going on, or Frank and Mattie shouldn’t occupy so much stage time. Right now, they’re only moderately pricklier than the “Cosby Show” grandparents--yet they’re presented as leading characters rather than as a cross-generational Greek chorus.

It’s difficult for the same actors to handle scenes so many years apart without extensive make-overs, but Winfield and Edwards bounce between the decades with such professionalism that we overlook the cosmetic problem. And Greene is a furious ball of energy as the self-obsessed, self-pressured Laura. My only quibble with Woodie King’s staging: A couple of slaps looked fake from my vantage point in the house.

Virgil Woodfork’s duplex is the most elaborate set I’ve seen on this stage, but it never gets in the way of the action, and it’s adroitly lit by Kathy Perkins. Adela Farmer’s costumes capably delineate the generations--and the times.

So does the whole play. It’s an articulate and trenchant report from the sexual and generational battlefront.

‘CHECKMATES’

By Ron Milner. Presented by Inner City Cultural Center, Marla Gibbs’ Crossroads Theater, National Black Touring Circuit and Michael Harris and Hayward Collins, executive producers. Director Woodie King. Producers Gloria Calomee, Angela Gibbs. Music Ernest McCarty. Production stage manager Ed DeShae. Set design Virgil Woodfork. Light design Kathy Perkins. Costume design Adela Farmer. Sound design Larry Nash. With Denzel Washington, Paul Winfield, Rhetta Greene, Gloria Edwards. At 1308 S. New Hampshire Ave., Thursdays-Saturdays at 8 p.m., Wednesdays and Sundays at 3 p.m., through July 12. Tickets: $10-$15; (213) 387-1163.