Oakland Theater Project wrestles with good and evil and a variety of social evils in ‘Exodus from Eden.’
Oakland Theater Project co-artistic director Michael Socrates Moran has directed many exhilarating productions for the company. He’s occasionally performed in them as an actor as well. But “Exodus to Eden,” OTP’s latest production, casts Moran in a new role — that of playwright.
On the latter level it’s often perplexing, as ambitious as it is abstruse. But in the former sense it’s beautifully successful, giving every member of the 17-person ensemble at least occasional moments to shine. A large group of unhoused people embark on a hard journey from Oakland to Oklahoma by foot chasing the promise of shelter in the form of a large house that belongs to the family of their seeming leader, Awele Makeba’s strong, no-nonsense Mary. Almost everyone in the party has lost a child through various calamities, though we hear only tiny fragments of their individual woes.
The story centers around Miriam, Mary’s estranged daughter, who’s pregnant, drug-addicted and breaking her parole for something or other. Played with sharp-tongued defiance by Arielle Powell, she’s also been thrust in the role of the savior or the doom of the pilgrims and maybe also the world.
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