Toni Stone

Play (2019)
Written and directed by Lydia R. Diamond

Choreographed by Ebony Williams
Inspired by the book Curveball: The Remarkable True Story of Toni Stone (2010) by Martha Ackmann
Huntington Theatre Company
The Huntington Theatre
Symphony Hall area, Boston
May 17 – June 16, 2024

Scenic Design: Collette Pollard; Costume Design: Mara Blumenfeld; Lighting Design: Brian J. Lilienthal; Sound Design: Aubrey Dube; Original Music: Lucas Clopton

With Jennifer Mogbock (Toni), Omar Robinson (Spec), Bobby Cius (Jimmy), Blake Morris (Stretch), Al’Jaleel
Photo: T. Charles Erickson
Courtesy of Huntington Theatre Company McGhee (Woody), Ryan Vincent Anderson (King Tut), Anthony T. Goss (Elzie), Jonathan Kitt (Alberga), Stanley Andrew Jackson (Millie), Olutayo Bosede (Fugus), Hassiem Muhammad (Acrobat, Juggler)

Toni Stone (Jennifer Mogbock) was the first black woman to play professional baseball in the United States and she did so on a number of teams around the country beginning in 1946 until the mid-1950s. The current narrative focuses on her time with the Indianapolis Clowns in 1953, during which her gumption and her talent frame her career. She is fiercely independent and determined to focus on her baseball career, but she develops a close relationship with an older man, Alberga (Jonathan Kitt), who pursues her with resolve. As well, she cultivates a close friendship with a female prostitute, Millie (Stanley Andrew Jackson), from whom she seeks advice and counsel.

Before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier into professional baseball in 1947 when he was signed to the Brooklyn Dodgers, black baseball players appeared solely in the Negro Leagues which had been established in the 1920s. A women’s baseball league was established in 1943 as a way to keep professional baseball alive during the Second World War and became popular over the course of the 1940s. (The story of this league and one of its teams is dramatized in the 1992 film A League of Their Own.) But women did not play on men’s teams until Toni Stone broke through and did so in the Negro Leagues in the 1940s. Several women in the Negro Leagues followed Stone’s example over the next several years.

In addition to providing sports entertainment, the Negro baseball leagues also featured a certain amount of showbiz entertainment, much like has continued with some of basketball’s black demonstration teams like The Harlem Globetrotters. In this play, that aspect of the Negro Leagues is brought forth in a number of lively and beautifully choreographed dance scenes. If one didn’t know that this minstrel-type entertainment was indeed a feature of what the Negro League teams did at the time, this aspect of the play might seem strange and out of place. Though playwright Diamond does not explain in the play what this is all about, the program notes do, and one can both enjoy this animated addition to the action and understand why it is included.

Jennifer Mogbock’s embodiment of Stone has a wonderful force and seriousness. One certainly gets the sense of a woman aware of her capacities and possessed by a sense of mission to realize them fully. She is onstage for the entire production which runs to two and a half hours with intermission, so it’s a demanding role. It is also emotionally demanding, involving a complex relationship with her older consort Alberga, serious challenges from some fellow team members, particularly Woody (Al’Jaleel McGhee), and continuing issues about the portrayal of black players with the white management of the team, represented by Syd (Omar Robinson). And, given the exuberant dance scenes, the role has physical challenges as well. Mogbock rises to the occasion admirably.

The cast is quite large, representing the eleven members of a baseball team, including the character of Alberga who, as a man in his sixties, figures somewhat imaginatively onto the team. And, some of the roles, notably those portrayed by the capable and versatile Omar Robinson, are doubled. Though there are other female characters than Toni, Mogbock is the only female actor in the cast. Millie, and Toni’s mother, are played by men. It’s not entirely clear why Diamond has chosen to do this other, perhaps, than to highlight Toni’s solitary role as a woman on this team. Though Stanley Andrew Jackson does an estimable job with the role of Millie, and the casting provides an interesting twist, it’s not entirely clear what is achieved by casting in this way.

As Alberga, Jonathan Kitt does a fine job as the gently pursuing admirer, then consort, of Toni. Despite Kitt’s capable portrayal there is a place later in the show in which Alberga’s response to Toni’s involvement on the team is more intense and oddly out of character. This oddity is a function of vulnerabilities in the writing rather than in Kitt’s performance and draws something away from the overall power and effect of Alberga’s role in the story, making him less of a sympathetic character. As well, at this later point in the show, Stone’s response to Alberga’s oddly intense response seems strange as well, not giving a sense of her resolve in the way one might expect. And the resolution of this conflict, depicted quickly at the end, comes across as weakly conceived. That Alberga is earlier on so compliant, then, seemingly all of a sudden harsh and resistant, and then again all of a sudden returns to his exceedingly accepting demeanor, does not make much sense.

The show is wonderfully staged and choreographed, and there are some fun additions like the juggling and acrobatics performed by Hasslem Muhammed. Scenic Design by Collette Pollard is adept, lighting design by Brian J. Lilienthal is capable and noteworthy as is the sound design by Aubrey Dube. Generally, Lydia Diamond, who wrote the play but also directed, does a fine job directorially. And the choreography by Ebony Williams is excellent, particularly evident in the several minstrel-type dance numbers.

In the program notes, Diamond acknowledges her somewhat pastiche-oriented approach to the narrative. Though a depiction of Toni Stone’s time with the Indianapolis Clowns, the account is put together more like a collage of interactions, with pieces of dialogue between different characters intersecting in ways that often gives the sense of a melange than a sequence. This is not necessarily ineffective, but it does give the show a kind of wandering quality without focusing as much on the internal dramas as much as it might. This gives the play a sense of continuing on, rather than steering through conflicts and resolutions, which yields a sense of a slice of life rather than a drama. Though. as noted above, there is some drama towards the end, it occurs rather quickly and in a way that does not feel like a thorough framing and resolution of the issues.

Overall: wonderfully staged, with great dancing, lighting, sound, and a lovely embodiment of the central character by Jennifer Mogbock, with a good supporting cast, in a somewhat loosely formed narrative that nevertheless evokes the force and significance of its subject.

– BADMan (aka Charles Munitz)