When Broadway actor Wiletta Mayer shows up at the first day of rehearsals for “Chaos in Belleville,” she has to practically bang down the backstage door to gain entry to the theater. Nobody can hear her. Literally. A sweet old stage manager points to his bum ear and shrugs. That’s the least of the indignities — and outright dehumanization — Wiletta endures during the troubled, 1957-set backstage play-within-the-play plot of Alice Childress’ scorching “Trouble in Mind,” which unfolds during rehearsals for “Chaos in Belleville.”
In TimeLine Theatre Company’s can’t-look-away staging, director Ron OJ Parson shapes a production that is both period-perfect and urgently of the moment. The casual (and not-so) racism and abuse heaped on Wiletta (Shariba Rivers) is baked right into the plot of “Chaos,” a play described by pompous, talentless, all-powerful white director Al Manners (Tim Decker) as a progressive “anti-lynching” drama.
