Down By the Water

On the Levee is the best show yet about Hurricane Katrina, most likely because it deals with that 2005 tragedy obliquely. Marcus Gardley’s play and Todd Almond’s songs (which are so period-perfect I didn’t realize they were written for the show until afterwards) focus on the 1927 Mississippi Flood, the largest American natural disaster until Katrina. When characters left homeless by the rising tides of the river whisper rumors of spreading disease, rapes and murder while waiting to be rescued, the parallels don’t need to be underlined, and director Lear deBessonet wisely doesn’t try.

Will Percy (Seth Numrich), the son of the wealthiest man in town, is under strict orders from his father as the liaison for the Red Cross: Keep the African Americans who have lost everything from leaving. If they leave, Percy’s father tells him sternly, the entire local economy will collapse without the trusty field hands. Never mind that Will feels for them, and has promised a boat will transport everyone to safer land; the boat will leave, but only with white passengers. Slowly, under his father’s tutelage, Will turns from an empathetic, sexually confused poet into a cruel bigot, blaming the black citizens for the tragedies that have befallen them.

At over two hours, On the Levee could stand some judicious trimming (as good as Almond’s songs are, there are probably two too many), but it’s hard to argue with the length when deBessonet has pulled out all of the theatrical stops. There’s an especially chilling moment at the end of Act One, when the river overflows its banks and chairs and lamps suddenly swing off the stage and into the air, dangling above the stunned characters.

The cast are all uniformly excellent, particularly Numrich and April Matthis, as a spiky reverend’s daughter who goes to the local juke joint to see how sinners live. Numrich’s transformation from quiet soul, yearning for the dashing L’Amour Mason (Stephen Plunkett) to whip-cracking bastard is riveting, especially in a climactic scene at a funeral. And Matthis is hilarious and heartbreaking as the good girl who finds herself drawn to bad boy James (an excellent Amari Cheatom).

But again and again, the creative team comes back to Hurricane Katrina and the ways in which America has repeatedly betrayed its minorities. In 1927, a program note tells us, the government dynamited the levees to redirect floodwaters through poor neighborhoods to spare the wealthy. There’s some redemption to be found here, in the ways the human spirit refuses to crumble under pressure, but over and over again, in increasingly angry ways, we’re reminded that life in America is often unfair and far from free. And even more depressingly, that things haven’t changed all that much in the last 80-plus years.

On the Levee

Through July 10, The Duke on 42nd Street, 229 W. 42nd St. (betw. 7th & 8th Aves.), 646-223-3010; $20.