Lack of focus knocks out ambitious ‘Six Rounds’

Dan Devine

“Six Rounds / Six Lessons,” the new production by theater group Company One, opens with a declaration for a drastic change in black youth culture.

“We’ve got to be a revolution wearing a do-rag, a fitted cap and some Tims,” the young man says.

While playwright John Oluwole ADEkoje clearly has the talent, wit and ambition to be a part of that revolution, his overloaded and under-edited script for “Six Rounds / Six Lessons” suggests that he still needs some seasoning before he’s ready to give marching orders.

The play revolves around Ace (James Milord), a college student and boxer trying to shepherd his family through its collective bouts with disappointment. The role fell to him after his father, a jazz musician named Moses (Wesley Lawrence Taylor), abandoned the family to crawl inside a bottle following a tragic fire that claimed the life of his infant son. Moses’ exit carved a deep wound in Rebekah (Juanita Rodrigues), the wife he left to raise three kids alone, and she can’t bring herself to fully trust Moses once he cleans up and comes calling.

Rebekah’s pain is mirrored in her oldest son Solo (Jason Bowen), whose unchecked development as a drug-addicted thug led to one fateful night that left him shot, paralyzed and on the way to a six-year prison bid. The emotional damage manifests differently in daughter Trisha (Karimah S. Moreland), whose attempt to shake the hold of an abusive boyfriend has her seeking sanctuary at Ace’s doorstep and in constant conflict with his wife Amy (Terri Deletetsky), who is white. All of these conflicts eventually rest with Ace, locked in a seemingly endless struggle to rejoin the shattered pieces of his family.

The characters hash out their traumas in the boxing ring that serves as the play’s primary set piece, a thematic device ADEkoje told The Boston Globe serves as “a metaphor for life — the knockouts [and] the victories that occur.” As each character enters the ring to face his or her demons, the titular lessons are unveiled — take care of your families; the past informs the present; love is eternal; people are people; we all need hope; and an unspoken sixth lesson that Moses tells us comes “in the living.”

Inside and outside the ring, the action is overseen and soundtracked by Keith Mascoll, playing double duty as a referee and DJ who makes sure that everybody’s ready for metaphysical combat.

The actors play their roles admirably and energetically, with standout performances by Bowen — his excellent Solo effortlessly alternates between the menacing pose of a hardened ex-con and the suffocating self-pity of a broken, arrested adolescent — and Mascoll, who steals the show as ADEkoje’s version of Shakespeare’s Puck, connecting plotlines and people with comic relief and expository information.

But “Six Rounds / Six Lessons” is more about the playwright than the actors, a showpiece for the expansive menu of pressing issues ADEkoje intends to address. While his ambition is inspiring, he bit off more than he could chew.

It’s hard to fault the creator for wanting to tackle so many worthy topics — traditional definitions of masculinity in the black community, the absence of continuity in black families and direction for black youth, and intracultural attitudes about “Uncle Toms,” “haters” and “snitching,” to name a few. It’s even harder because his successes are excellent, such as the tense exchange between Solo and Ace over the circumstances that led to the former’s arrest, which he blames on his baby brother. Ace tells him to drop it.

“What, drop it like it’s hot?” asks Solo, sardonically referencing Snoop Dogg’s 2004 gangsta anthem.

“No. Drop it like you dropped out of school. Drop it like you dropped into that drug habit. Drop it like you dropped into that Lexus you boosted for your birthday,” Ace replies.

In moments like this and the conversation in which Rebekah admonishes her daughter for failing to avoid being sucked into the same messes that ruined her — “But you didn’t show me how. You just told me,” a pained Trisha tells her mother — ADEkoje’s strong and unique voice steps forward. He’s got a deft touch for teasing out the emotional nuances of complicated family dynamics and using them to comment on larger issues, and that singular talent drives the high points of “Six Rounds / Six Lessons” home to resonate deep in your gut.

But despite the strength of these individual moments, ADEkoje’s play comes close to collapsing under the weight of its big picture scope.

ADEkoje dubbed his play “a tragicomic hip-hop concerto,” a phrase that speaks to his desire to weld a variety of elements together into a new kind of art. But by choosing to inject hip-hop lyricism and slam-poetic wordplay into every dramatic development, he exercises questionable judgment in crafting dialogue, leading to awkward, corny bits of soliloquy from some of the play’s principals.

When Rebekah recalls a happy moment from before her split with Moses, her tears become “droplets of joy on my cocoa skin, making hot chocolate before your very eyes.” Amy fumbles through descriptions of her beef with Trisha — “There are still traces of her venomous words all over the phone. I had to wipe it down with Lysol” — and her heartbreak after losing her love, characterized as “bittersweet memories that continuously do drive-bys in the neighborhood next to my heart.” The lines are so overemotional that they come off as sappy and derail the play’s momentum.

The diversion is particularly unfortunate because the fundamental premise behind “Six Rounds / Six Lessons” — the playwright’s attempt to break down traditional barriers between audience and performers to create a new, more participatory kind of art — makes it hard to develop any cohesion and momentum at all.

Characters consistently step outside the story to confront the audience, imploring viewers to sing, stomp and dance along with the DJ’s beats, and even asking seemingly rhetorical questions that result in uncomfortable silence when you’re told to “forget about all this play s***” and asked again. The net effect is somewhat disorienting. This may be by design, a necessary outgrowth of ADEkoje’s goal to break new ground, but it disrupts the viewer nonetheless.

Such disruptions ultimately keep “Six Rounds / Six Lessons” from reaching its potential. Complex ideas are briefly explored and abruptly set aside without resolution, or even so much as a transition. The action of the play becomes hard to follow because events appear to be happening in the past, present and in the purgatory-esque world of the boxing ring all at the same time. And the frenetic pace necessitated by the litany of topics up for grabs prevents both the characters and the audience from getting a solid handle on any of them.

Taken as a whole, the play feels less like a clear communication of one man’s viewpoint on a culture in crisis and more like a loud, sustained scream — it’s passionate, but impossible to make out just what the powerful voice is trying to say.

Early in “Six Rounds / Six Lessons,” Ace talks about his desire to have a son — a little version of himself he can teach to box and be a man.

“Most importantly, I want him to know how to retreat,” Ace says. “Because sometimes, you need to know when to back off and regroup.”

ADEkoje would do well to heed his lead character’s words. If he doesn’t learn how to rein in his widescreen vision, it may be a while before he achieves anything greater than what he earns with “Six Rounds / Six Lessons” — a split decision.

“Six Rounds / Six Lessons” runs through March 31 at Boston Center for the Arts, 539 Tremont Street, Boston. Tickets range from $15-$30. For show times and tickets, call 617-933-8600, visit www.bostontheatrescene.com, or purchase them in person at the Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts or the Boston University Theatre Box Office, 264 Huntington Avenue.

For more information, visit Company One’s Web site at www.companyone.org.