Preview Thoughts on Toni Stone

My schedule has been so jam-packed that I hadn't been able to find a time to get tickets to Lydia Diamond's new play Toni Stone, produced at Roundabout's smaller Off-Broadway house, the Laura Pels.  Last week, an office chum had an extra free ticket (wahoo!), so happily, I squeezed in one.more.show.  I would pay for it later in the week with a near-exhaustion collapse, but oh my, Toni Stone was worth it...

I'm a big fan of Lydia Diamond, her play Stick Fly intrigued me, plus she is just a delightful person.  I'm also a big fan of baseball AND a big fan of stories of women who never got the credit they deserved!  Oh, and since last season's Choir Boy, I'm also a fan of choreographer Camille A Brown, who put together the wonderful movement that represented the baseball in the story.  So all signs pointed toward my enjoying Toni Stone and enjoy it I did.  I went with my office chum a little early over to the theater and we treated ourselves to the special Toni Stone cocktail: it was supposed to have ginger liqueur, pear liqueur, mint and sparkling wine in it.  I'm pretty sure it was just a big plastic cup of champagne, which I guess I was ok with.  I was maybe the tiniest bit tipsy before the play even started.  It didn't matter, though, I would've loved this play regardless.

photo credit: Joan Marcus

Toni Stone is about the sadly-forgotten Marcenia Lyle Stone, also known as Toni, who was the first woman to play as a regular on a big-league professional baseball team.  She played for the Indianapolis Clowns, a team in the Negro Leagues, in 1953, but her breakthrough has been pushed aside over the years and she is barely known anymore.  In this production, the absolutely incredible April Matthis plays Toni and she makes you want to know everything about this fascinating woman who shouldn't be a footnote, but a major entry in baseball history.  Matthis' performance is simply fantastic and a real tour-de-force.

photo credit: Sara Krulwich

As played by Matthis, Toni is funny, quirky, loving, and completely obsessed with the game of baseball.  She frequently rattles off baseball stats when she doesn't know what else to say.  The play goes back and forth in time, to describe the highs and many lows in Toni's life and career.  As a groundbreaking woman of color, she had to endure so much ridicule from her family, baseball crowds, other players, and management.  The fact that she remained completely and utterly herself is a triumph. The other eight performers play both her baseball teammates, as well as other important people in Toni's life.  The cast is, across the board, superb, with special mention to Kenn E. Head as Millie, Toni's only female friend, a kindly prostitute and another societal outcast.  Their relationship was so beautifully written.

Actually, each character, and there are a lot of them portrayed in this two-act piece, is written with much detail and specificity.  You got to know everyone as an individual, but also as a part of the team/society.  I just loved the way Diamond wrote this piece that seems as regimented, and as unexpectedly loose, as a baseball game.  The play is really a lot of fun, with laughs and enjoyable lessons about someone who deserves to be celebrated.  But the end of the first act is one of the most pointed excoriations of racism I've seen in a long time, while maintaining the loose, improvisational quality of the rest of the show.  I don't want to spoil the scene or the moment, but I had to mention it because I've been talking about it since I saw the show, and I've been thinking about it even more.  It was absolutely brilliant.

Even if you don't like baseball, you should definitely see Toni Stone.  In our lifetimes, there are so many people and stories that have been silenced or pushed aside - I am so drawn to stories that open our eyes to these lives and these people who endured so much to pave the way for others to follow.  And besides the delight of the play itself, I really believe April Matthis is giving a performance that people will be talking about for a long time; she is truly spectacular.  Thumbs way up to Roundabout for putting together this story about a strong woman, led by a female production team.  Now if they could do it more frequently in their Broadway houses, I would be delighted...