STAGE REVIEWS : OPEN FESTIVAL : ‘Look’: A Funny Death Warmed Over

Show up for “One Last Look,” a play at Crossroads Theatre, and a flower-bedecked casket is stage center. Services open with soaring gospels and spirituals from a robed women’s chorale. When mourners in the funeral parlor get up to peer into the box at the late Eustace Baylor, you begin to feel queasy. Did you take the wrong turnoff?

Suddenly there’s a vocal fuss at the back of the house. At the same time, a blind man with a cane stumbles up to the coffin and sticks his hand into the open casket to feel if it’s really old Eustace. A brawl erupts when rival members of the deceased’s extended families--his West Indian wife and his African-American mistress (and their warring offspring)--fight over who is going to sit where.

Even the ghost of Eustace (a droll Lincoln Kilpatrick) shows up. This is an uproarious show, death warmed over, with some unexpected scorching drama (particularly from the wives, Masequa Myers and Amentha Dymally). There is a hilarious turn by busybody griever Susie Garrett, who carps about those “West Indian monkeys.” Raymond Allen’s formal Harlem funeral director has his hands full.

Directed by Edmund J. Cambridge and set in 1962, the production is the final play of a trilogy by Steve Carter (“Eden” and “Nevis Mountain Dew”) exploring relationships between African and Caribbean Americans.

The production is a promising send-off for the comfortable smaller theater in Crossroads’ new home in the Leimert-Crenshaw district. At 4310 Degnan Blvd., Fridays and Saturdays, 8 p.m., Sundays, 3 p.m., through Oct. 7. $12. (213) 291-7321.