Scraps

Powerful, thought-provoking, moving writing, with great performances across the board. A must-see for anyone interested in forward-thinking theater.

I sat in the audience for three shows. Each time, I discovered more and more from the rich dialogue and powerfully acted scenes. This show is painfully raw and honest, and both hauntingly beautiful and harrowing. This Riveting theatre experience left me both stunned and exhausted. Utmost gratitude and respect for all in front of and behind the scenes of this production.

Wow just wow! This show was amazing! All the Actors were incredible. This story touched my friend and I who came to see the show Saturday night. Thank you!!

Now if this review sounds harsh to you, good!

I want it to sound harsh, because I am tired to my bones of that unholy cabal of pretentious East Coast theaters and dim West Coast TV writers and producers foisting on L.A. audiences drivel such as this.

Stevie Walker-Webb is accredited with directing. I’m curious as to how he did it with a straight face.

Perhaps Ms. Inoa knew there was no way to resolve her superb story. The awful, messy section that ends the 90-minute one-act keeps this endeavor from being a theatrical epiphany, and it robs the audience of experiencing the stunning devastation which occurs when we are confronted by that almost inconceivable phenomenon: the human condition. The amazing beginning had me pondering race relations to the hilt, and was the best kind of political art. The message had been delivered. I didn’t need it hammered home.

This was a really wonderful and poignantly acted production that dealt with issues that are often ignored in discourses of race and police violence. The first half of the play portrays the aftermath of a police shooting (of a young black man in Bed Stuy, Brooklyn) amongst his family and friends. The audience is given a poetic "in" to the trauma and consequence of this kind of systemic violence. But once the audience is given the opportunity to connect with the story line and its characters the play shifts and the second act both phantasmagorically and directly deals with the too little discussed trauma inflicted upon black children when their fathers are murdered by the police and taken from them too soon. The play offers a unique perspective on matters of Black American existence and its often gendered implications and experiences. The performances given provide the audience with a both subtle and heart wrenching look into the fear and subjection that is inherently tied to black lives. I hope everyone has the opportunity to see it.

The cast is excellent.

Playwright Inoa, a theater and television writer who’s a story editor on AMC’s “The Walking Dead,” intriguingly complicates these relationships, though the play’s episodic structure has a looseness that occasionally feels lax. But the underlying social psychology, which comes into sharp focus when a white police officer (Stan Mayer) menacingly asserts his authority, is cogent to the point of harrowing.

dynamite, timely show. don't miss it! superb acting and set. powerful! a perfect response to police brutality against people of color!

A brutal, beautiful meditation/confrontation on the horrific realities of our time. A must-see production, with an incredible text from writer Geraldine Inoa and brilliant directing by Stevie Walker-Webb. BRAVO to the entire cast and crew.

This shift from act one to act two is jarring - as it should be. Structurally, it’s not entirely successful but emotionally it’s devastating.

What holds the play together is the remarkable ensemble of actors who go from giving subtle, nuanced performances in act one to over the top physically bold caricatures in act two. It’s like two different plays and it’s not an easy journey.

Ms. Inoa’s voice isn’t one you’ve heard in the theater before but if we’re going to make sense of racism and the violence against innocent black men - hers is an essential voice.

Don’t miss this powerful production.

Provocative and bold, this stylistic piece blends slam poetry and surrealism into the story, resulting in a piece that makes a statement and holds nothing back. It seems designed to be polarizing, especially given what a departure it is from the mostly conventional first half, but it is what makes Scraps stand out as something radical and different, unafraid of probing into uncomfortable territory.

Inoa’s language is authentic and often raw, both lofty and nightmarish. Among her concerns is the value of work and education. Aisha is a much put-upon worker with a horrible lady boss, but she keeps her nose to the grindstone with a young son to support. Calvin is a serious student at Columbia trying to lift his prospects in life. These characters stand in contrast to Jean Baptiste and Adriana, who are beaten down by the feeling of abandonment society imposes on them. And by the way, as if life weren’t sad and crazy enough, now they’re seeing signs that, like Williamsburg and other nearby working-class neighborhoods of Brooklyn, Bed-Stuy (who could have imagined it?) is now on the shortlist for gentrification.

“I hate white people,” Adriana says at one point, then softens it slightly. It takes an enormous sense of self-possession to overcome the disadvantages of being born Black in America. It would take an almost unimaginable leap of faith for people of color in this country to trust whites long enough to enter that broad democratic united front we need so desperately. Whites have a lot of self-examination to do before they (we, I should say) can prove our faithfulness to do the right thing.

We don’t see the impact of such a shooting on the friends, lovers and others whose life the deceased touched. Playwright Geraldine Inoa sees, and she has given them voices.

The voices are not the typical Six O’Clock News soundbites. They’re tumbles of howls and wails and words. They offend. They incite. They’re accessorized with the artifacts of slavery and death. They simultaneously break and harden your heart.

Scraps, directed by Stevie Walker-Webb, interrupts its own story with spoken word and a fever dream of shocking imagery. It doesn’t always hang together but the emotions expressed are clear and raw.

Directed by Stevie Walker-Webb, SCRAPS is presented with compassion and empathy, a fascinating peek at a world of trauma and loss.

What holds the play together is the remarkable ensemble of actors who go from giving subtle, nuanced performances in act one to over the top physically bold caricatures in act two. It’s like two different plays and it’s not an easy journey.

Ms. Inoa’s voice isn’t one you’ve heard in the theater before but if we’re going to make sense of racism and the violence against innocent black men - hers is an essential voice.

Don’t miss this powerful production.

It's not often that a play has me speechless, with tears in my eyes and sadness in my soul at the end, given the brilliance of the writing, direction, and acting ensemble. Given the prevalence of gun violence on the streets of America, the news of a police shooting barely gets noticed, unless of course the question of race enters into the scenario. But what SCRAPS does so effectively is get you to think about what happens to those left behind, the patterns of violence that persist, as well as the sadness which remains when the realization hits you how widespread the problems are and solutions non-existent.

As earthquakes struck SoCal a theatrical aftershock rocked the L.A. stage on July 6 with the West Coast premiere of Scraps. Geraldine Inoa’s brilliant, powerful play is at the cutting edge of the stage and screen cycle of productions reacting to the surge of police and vigilante killings of African Americans and/or the judicial system’s unjust mistreatment of Blacks. And Scraps is among the best of these works protesting racial injustice and inequity perpetrated (and perpetuated) by those perps/twerps – the “men” in blue and in robes (sometimes black, sometimes white).

One of the play’s primary strengths is how cogently Inoa weaves themes of social oppression into her characters’ sentiments and passions (rather than beating you over the head with a message as less skilled writers do). Her story isn’t only about grief but about the way societal expectations affect people’s lives, even their most intimate bonds and friendships.

This important, extraordinary, affecting play, featuring a superb cast of actors given keen direction by Stevie Walker-Webb, must be seen. Not everyone will like it; not everyone will understand it. The same can be said of many of the great classics of the theatre. See it. Draw your own conclusions. I guarantee you will not be bored.

The playwright paints a powerful and true portrait of what it’s like for black people to live in a world of terror and fear—it’s just unfortunate that she obscures the portrait by throwing too much paint at it.

Aside from some problems with diction, the cast perform well and give all they could to this gutsy but flawed theatrical experiment.

This play is fantastic!!! The actors are so good and the direction incredible and the production is amazing. There was a 6.9 earthquake at the beginning of the play that’s how badass these actors were. They made the earth shake.

A true theatrical experience. It's difficult to describe something like this without sounding like you're trying to be smarter than you are, because as an audience it moves us beyond ourselves. There is a kind of bending of time and space that happens, in the place where realism marries the avant-garde and becomes something different entirely. A place to exist, maybe, as humans sharing an experience which is too bleak for words.

The play is beautiful. The language is vivid, and sweet, and lethal. The acting is nuanced and intimate and definite. The direction is crystalline and exciting. This play does things. This is the kind of theater we should be begging for.