Keeping Hope Alive in ‘Golden’
Holding hope and seeking change in desperate times, Golden is both playful and sharp. The world premiere from Seattle playwright Andrew Lee Creech runs through May 11 at ACT Contemporary Theatre.
Put some respect on it. …
You gotta speak it into existence.
Staring at the Golden Coin laundromat’s centerpiece change machine and watching customers and proprietor alike chase after hope in the face of what ails them, I can’t help but think back to the mother of all cynical lines: How’s that hopey-changey stuff workin’ out for ya? The time was 2010, midway through the first term of America’s first Black president, when Sarah Palin was arguably still relevant and banking on voters having had enough.
Andrew Lee Creech’s Golden takes us back to that era, in 2008, when the Great Recession was hitting some in America like a ton of bricks, a few as an opportunity to exploit, and the great many like just another stress point on an already thin margin. Golden‘s cast of characters, Black Americans in various versions of stretched-thin, are aware of the headlines. For the most part, it’s the immediate headwinds that concern them — getting to the next dollar, the next day, the next safe bed.
At the center of this stage’s orbit is the Golden Coin laundromat, a place where community connections and banter take precedence over most actual laundry operation, to the (occasional) chagrin of its larger-than-life proprietor and namesake, Morris Golden. Firmly in the “spend a buck to make a buck” school of business, Golden holds out hope that his upgraded machines and wall-mounted TV will be the magnets he needs to bring money back through the front door.
At times, there’s a good dash of magical realism at work in Golden, as a temperamental old change machine at the center of the stage emits an other-worldly glow. Or maybe it’s all in the mind of its proprietor who, along with his mix of customers and neighborhood characters, has seen a lot more realism than magic.
A Seattle-based playwright, Creech is part-way into his Legacy Plays cycle, a series of plays on Black Americans over place and time. It’s a clear nod to August Wilson and his enduring Century Cycle (The Pittsburgh Cycle), a Pittsburgh-born Black playwright who wrote a play set in each decade in the 20th century. (Wilson, incidentally, ended up in Seattle and maintained a close relationship with Seattle Rep, which has produced most of his plays over the years; you can visit a monument to him at the Seattle Center, right behind the Rep. He died in Seattle in 2005.)
At Taproot Theatre in 2023, Creech wowed with Last Drive to Dodge, on oft-overlooked Black cowboys in the heartland. Locally, he’s long been a playwright-to-watch. With Golden, Creech steps into a line of greats, painting a point in time in intimate, vulnerable glimpses, profound moments, and throwaway banter alike. As with living rooms and dispatch offices and diners before it, Golden places the laundromat as the community pillar at the center of its characters’ orbit. Parmida Ziaei’s set is immediately recognizable and centers the place, giving vibes of some of the Rep’s more recent productions of Wilson’s Two Trains Running and Jitney.
Director Tyrone Phillips brings out the playfulness of this script, a welcome balance alongside its characters’ hard breaks and tough love. In this staging, its world premiere, Golden‘s full of tight dialogue, loose limbs, and precarious positions.
The production boasts a great cast, anchored by the always excellent Tracy Michelle Hughes as Rheeda; Elena Flory-Barnes as stretched-thin but proud mama bear Jazmine; Mesgana Alemshowa as daughter Zora, a free spirit you can watch the world temper just a little with each setback; Kaughlin Caver and Arlando Smith as slick characters Quikk and Earl; and Ty Willis as the titular Morris Golden, large and in charge.
In recent years, ACT has taken a frustrating route of pouring much into incredible productions, then opening them one week and closing them the next — in other words, the load’s almost finished. Don’t let this Golden ticket pass you by.
Golden runs through 5/11 at ACT Contemporary Theatre in Downtown Seattle. Tickets here. Pay-what-you-choose tickets (limited) and rush tickets offered for all performances; see info here. Accessibility notes: restrooms are gender-neutral and multi-stall. Theatre and common areas are wheelchair accessible; see venue’s accessibility info here.
Run time: 95 minutes, no intermission
Chase D. Anderson is Editor & Producer of NWTheatre.org.