Broadway performer Anika Larsen (All Shook Up, Xanadu) has written a musical valentine to her multi-cultural family in Shafrika, The White Girl, but good intentions aren’t enough to prevent Shafrika from feeling overblown and overwritten.
Growing up in a family that eventually boasted 10 children, six of them adopted from across the globe, Larsen has some powerful experiences with racism and the platonic ideal of family in America. The problem comes when her large ensemble “hi-jacks” the show from her, returning to an earlier draft than the sanitized version Larsen supposedly prefers.
The conceit is a clever one at first, preventing the show from falling into the abyss of disingenuous self-aggrandizement. But as the interruptions pile up, director and co-conceiver April Nickell can’t maintain momentum. Shafrika begins to feel like a disjointed family project created for a family reunion, complete with home movies projected onto the rear wall and the retelling of family lore that means nothing to anyone outside of the clan.
Shafrika only really comes alive when the ensemble bursts into a song and dance. The titular opening number is a tightly choreographed delight, while a riff-heavy rendition of “Ebony and Ivory” sung on a road trip is both funny and touching. But with only 10 songs performed over the two hour running time, too much time has been allotted for cutesy childhood stories.
The second act at least includes some heavy family drama, as the Larsen’s rainbow-colored clan begins to fall apart under teenage rebellion. The second act is also when Larsen begins to grapple with the ideals she was raised with regarding race, as she starts dating an African-American a cappella singer at Yale. For the first time in her life, Larsen is confronted with the optional segregation that plagues lunchrooms across the country, uncertain of where she belongs as a white girl raised to ignore skin color.
Unfortunately, as she begins to admit the ways in which she’s failed her upbringing (punching one of her brothers, dabbling in racial profiling), the ensemble takes to comforting her by reminding her that she was just a child, that no one is perfect. Since Larsen wrote the show, these reassurances are a little hard to swallow, as if she needs public clemency for childhood indiscretions.
Larsen herself comes across as a relaxed and talented performer, an able narrator who keeps the show moving as smoothly as her fitful script will allow. The ensemble, however, is a mixed bag. The harmonies are exquisite, but too many of the performers adopt the annoying mannerisms of actors playing small children. And since the show has been written to be performed as if for the first time, actors have been directed by Nickell to break down under the sadness of their character’s stories, lending a high school auditorium feel to the proceedings. Without a stronger directorial hand, Shafrika preaches when it should effortlessly inspire, and Larsen, a bubbly blonde with a razor-edged wit, doesn’t seem like the type to preach.
>Shafrika, The White Girl
Through June 28, The Vineyard Theatre, 108 E. 15th St. (betw. Irving Pl. and Union Square East), 212-868-4444; times vary, $18.
