So here we are, at the end of Tarell Alvin McCraney’s trilogy, The Brother/Sister Plays. It all began back in September at Marin Theatre Company in Mill Valley with In the Red and Brown Water, continued through the middle of October at Magic Theatre in San Francisco with The Brothers Size and now finishes up at A.C.T. with Marcus; or The Secret of Sweet, which runs through November 21, 2010. Regardless of the unevenness of McCraney’s project, you have to applaud these three theater companies for pulling off a rare collaboration.
If part one was a well-executed, if somewhat indulgent, exercise and part two was marked by its ferocious beauty and irresistible physicality, part three is just another play with issues — from forced acting, to a story that is frequently undermined by the words McCraney puts in his actor’s mouths. Despite some Tyler Perry-quality laughs and a few ‘pay attention: you’re-watching-important-theater’ moments, Marcus holds no secret and its inconclusive ending is anything but sweet. We’re promised a coming-of-age story about a young, gay, African American man, but all we get is a storm.
Literally. Marcus, you see, is set in the days just before Hurricane Katrina, a conveniently melodramatic hook to hang Marcus’s rain-soaked dreams on. When we meet Marcus Eshu (Richard Prioleau), he’s having one of those dreams, which has been infiltrated by the ghost of Oshoosi Size (it’s a treat to see Tobie L. Windham reprising the character he played at the Magic; the consistency works). The dream is a bad one from Marcus’s perspective because he doesn’t understand it. From our perspective, it is a dream of redemption and forgiveness from a younger brother, Oshoosi, to his elder, Ogun (played here, unconvincingly, I’m afraid, by Gregory Wallace). Marcus’s dream is truly a gift, but for some reason it strikes everyone who hears about it as really bad news.

Marcus (Richard Prioleau) and Shaunta Iyun (Omozé Idehenre)
As it turns out, Marcus has many dreams, some which speak to his struggle with his sexuality. Being young, gay, and black in the rural south, we’re told, carries some serious baggage (one of the characters refers to it as “black-mo-phobia”), making the problems associated with being — oh, I don’t know — young, gay, and white in San Francisco a cakewalk by comparison. I’m neither, so am hardly in a position to comment on McCraney’s assertion or his unstated implication, but what I can do is point out the holes in his case.