WEEKEND REVIEWS : Theater : ‘Tracks’ Follows King’s Agenda

The best parts of “Tracks,” an unusual multimedia show that played over the weekend at Bovard Auditorium at USC, came from the recorded speeches of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

After 30 years, King’s stirring words still ring true, especially when excerpted over slide images of the 1992 Los Angeles riots and other urban miseries. As this show quotes King: “We must learn to live together as brothers, or we will perish together as fools.”

Yolanda King, the slain civil rights leader’s eldest daughter, co-produces and plays all 16 characters in “Tracks,” which seems intended to put the lives of today’s African Americans in the context of her father’s mission.

In this ambitious task, the younger King reveals herself to be a principled and tireless performer. Yet the show itself, scripted and directed by Ron Stacker Thompson, is a head-scratching melange of amateur soap opera and grating, off-track monologues. By the end of the evening, the only character still making sense is Rev. King.

The central figure is Zandy, a poor woman struggling for self-respect in a hostile world. Insulted by an arrogant employment counselor and abandoned by the man who fathered her child, Zandy still finds a secretarial job and manages to maintain a level of dignity that, the show suggests, is vital to Rev. King’s dream of racial equality.

Had “Tracks” burrowed deeper into Zandy’s life and character, it might have illuminated some fundamental truths about the African American experience 26 years after King’s death. Yet much of the dialogue consists of droning chitchat and contrived conflicts that really never go anywhere.

Yolanda King herself is onstage for about half the show.

For the rest of the time, her performances as various characters--an oracular grandmother, a Chinese American doctor, a screaming cab driver--are projected on a triptych of video screens at center stage.

Sometimes a character onstage attempts to interact with another character on the video screen, a daring and ultimately thankless trick that led to some inevitable timing miscues Saturday night.

Unlike more assured monologuists such as Eric Bogosian and David Cale, King chooses to ballast her characterizations with powdered wigs and wax mustaches. In fact, the makeup probably undermines, rather than aids, her otherwise strong portrayals. A more theatrical show might have ditched both video and greasepaint and just allowed King, the solo performer, to tell a story.

“Tracks,” which has toured the country, was presented as a benefit for the Black Agenda, a group of 20 Los Angeles churches promoting economic opportunities.