‘Ameriville’ paints a portrait of America both familiar, frightening

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Mildred Ruiz-Sapp (clockwise from front), William Ruiz (aka Ninja), Stephen Sapp and Gamal Abdel Chasten star in "Ameriville" at Victory Gardens Biograph Theater.

Updated: February 8, 2012 7:44PM

First, in order to understand the essence of “Ameriville” — the show now at the Victory Gardens Biograph Theatre that is being performed by a quartet calling itself Universes, and that was developed and directed by Chay Yew, the theater’s new artistic director — you are advised to turn your beatbox on.

This 90-minute rhythmic rant on all the afflictions that are now (and have forever) beset this country is no traditional dialogue-driven play. Call it a spoken word choreo-poem — with roots that stretch all the way back to call-and-response chants and work songs, and all the way forward to Ntozake Shange’s “For Colored Girls....,” as well as to the far more contemporary rapmasters of your choosing. And be advised that it hammers out a verbally percussive political platform that runs the gamut of dystopian American ideology.

Without doubt, the ensemble — comprised of Steven Sapp, Mildred Ruiz-Sapp, Gamal Chasten and William Ruiz (a.k.a. “Ninja”) — is galvanizing and brilliant. They speak and sing and move and create a syncopated soundscape so complex and so fluid you cannot help but be seduced. But let’s put it this way: If you televised Universes’ show in a prime-time slot you could probably put a happy stop to the political campaigns of both major parties and hold an election tomorrow. Democrats would flock to the polls to vote FOR Universes. Republicans would race even faster to vote AGAINST them. And there would be precious few “undecideds” left along the road.

“Ameriville” begins with a tight focus on Hurricane Katrina’s devastation of New Orleans and its shameful legacy for the United States as a whole. We hear from the dispossessed — mostly black, but also white and elderly, and Vietnamese — with each ethnic group given an intriguingly different tone of voice for their rage or pain, and with a mythic overlay coming in the form of the Mardi Gras parade, the church and a sharply honed round of “playing the dozens” about being “that kind of black.”

From New Orleans the show fans outward, to the more general plagues of homelessness and joblessness, the lack of universal health insurance, the pernicious techniques employed in redlining and gentrification, the difficult lives of undocumented immigrants, the phenomenon of “ecological racism,” and the broken promises besetting a Latina soldier who signed up for military service after Sept. 11 only to come home to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and find her house reduced to a concrete slab by the dramatic flooding there, and a split chorus chanting the words “hero” and “spic” at her.

The beat goes on, with lynching references that seem both unnecessary and out of date, as well as a few very funny comic riffs. To top things off, there is a grand finale “funeral” scene for the corpse of the United States which, if you ask me, takes things one giant step too far, especially if you fail to also call into question everything from the rape and corruption that infests so many African countries, to the political repression and ecological calamity that permeates China, to the vote fraud and economic chicanery in Russia, to the brutal drug wars in Central America, to the deforestation of the Brazilian rainforest. Need I go on?

You might very well leave “Ameriville” thinking maybe some of THAT should be hammered out before you seal the coffin of Uncle Sam. Just call it “Globalville.”