nd I never knew how beautiful language could be uplifted without it even being heard. You can just see the rhythm coming off the page. I remember just not being able to fall asleep just saying, ‘Step, step.’ It shows the way that brotherhood can be formed in any area and in any capacity and how we all yearn for it. And being an only child, I have to step into the everyday environment trying to form a connection and finding brotherhood. It just shows the difficulties and the beauty and triumphs and the sacrifice it takes to show that you love your brothers, that you have your brother’s back. It was just a beautiful moral to learn as a Black man and how we show love and vulnerability.”

While the Brothers Size set is pretty open and bare, it is characters and the language of the script that fill the set with meaning.

“My character is Ogun Size, the older brother to Oshoosi Size,” said Rasell Holt. “Look, I’m not much of a character actor yet, so I always try to focus in on what I can naturally bring as an artist and how I would naturally connect with the character and just try to give myself little sentences and phrases that will help me get into their mindset or where they have been. One of the main things that I have with Ogun is he is trying to try. And if you look at some of the other works that are in this trilogy as a whole, he has a number of reasons to stop. For good reason, he could just give up. But with this show, he still has a grain of hope. And that is his little brother and to keep pushing him forward. I try to hold onto that. It’s interesting to figure out how that manifests. It may look one way inside — and thankfully the language gives you a lot of opportunity to do this in the way that the play is structured — you see that there is a lot more simmering or lying beneath Ogun that gets to come out, which is ultimately the love and care for the people he has around him.”

While Nathan Barlow’s character Elegba might be considered to be the bad influence of evil in the play, it is important to Barlow to make him human.

“I think from the get go it was extremely important for me not to have him be portrayed as a villain,” Barlow emphasized. “I’ve had so many people ask me about the trickster and evil nature of my character. And I don’t necessarily think that it is beneficial as an actor to play evil. It doesn’t really make any sense. So you have to find the authenticity of love. That’s where I base every direction and every objective with this character, how much he is full of love for Oshoosi.”

And the character that connects everyone together is Oshoosi, the younger brother of Ogun.

“When I read Brother Size and read the character of Oshoosi, there is so much innocence there,” said Derrick Moore. “And as an actor, I get really excited because he is not regimented to an older brother or a confident or a friend. He can express the large spectrum of emotions. And that is how I approach Oshoosi, someone with this naiveté, this innocence, but also striving for a level of independence. He is a younger man. I just go full tilt with that innocence. Being a younger brother, knowing firsthand what it means to have things done for you and wanting to break out of this whole parental guy that his brother has. ‘Stop telling me how to live.’ Having that pushback with him in this show is a key element that I try to lock in on.”

When asked what message the play was giving its audience, Moore emphasized that no matter what the circumstance, it is always about the love.

“It is a play about love,” Moore said. “I don’t mean to sound cheesy. It’s about love, sacrifice and family. We are here in Spring Green, Wisconsin. And I’m pretty sure a lot of the text our audience doesn’t have a cultural background with, just the dialogue and how we talk to each other and the music of it. From that standpoint, they might be a bit of an outsider. But what I have perceived from some of the people here in the community is, ‘Oh, I thought about my brother. I thought about someone in my family.’ I think that is what makes art very transcendent. This color stuff that we are fighting against, art has always been a way to pierce right through the middle of that and find some type of common ground between us as human beings.”

All of the actors and the director emphasized that the audience is a part of the performance.

“This is a communal, call-and-response night out at the theater,” Moore said. “Don’t feel stuffy enough where you can’t respond or be vocal. Some of the best and most spiritual shows are when the audience is on the journey with us. Kick up and take off your shoes, relax and respond. We’re talking directly to you in some parts of the play, so engage.”

Feel the love.

The prison-industrial system stains you. It stains you and it tarnishes, in some ways, your dreams. And that is sh**ty. Just to put that into your psyche.

“These characters are deeply based on mythical beings, mythical gods and goddesses from our culture, from the original culture, from the African culture, specifically West African and Yorba culture,” Lawrence emphasized. “I think it is important for American and white audiences to know that many, many years before there was Aristotle and Plato and Socrates, the ancient school of Egypt had knowledge that was then taken by Alexander the So-called Great and the Greeks then received credit for these things. The first form of theater that we know of is not in ancient Greece. It’s in ancient Egypt, the Abydos passion play. I’m saying all of that to say that I feel like this play connects us to our history in a way that is important. But it also reminds us that in this day, 2022, we are still living in a country where the industrial-prison system is like an extension of slavery. It’s another way to keep us locked down and locked up. And I feel that society at-large, the American society-at-large, still hasn’t come to terms with the role that they have played in our incarceration, whether it be in our communities or actually behind physical bars or within our minds. So many Brothers that I know are locked in this idea. You hear someone say something about you enough that you start believing it without even getting the chance to check it out for yourself. I feel that Tarell and his play allow us to connect to our beauty, the ancient way that we used to do things and it intersects with the contemporary modern world in a way that I don’t think I see any other playwright doing. So we come away from it feeling royal and noble, but also really present and able to speak to what is happening now.”

The Brothers Size is set in rural Louisiana where Orgun Size, the older brother is visited by his younger brother Oshoosi who has been recently released from prison and Elegba, Oshoosi’s prison roommate. Through this vehicle, a lot of issues that African American men face are explored.

“One of the things that our playwright, Tarell McCraney, is very interested in illuminating is how the prison system in this country completely destroys any kind of fabric that exists in Black families,” Lawrence said. “And because Black and Brown men, particularly Black men, are incarcerated at ridiculously higher rate than anyone else, it just shows that in spite of these obstacles that these brothers are dealing with that they can still find within themselves the ability to love, to care, to sacrifice, to help. And that, for me, is what I hope people come away from it with. Yes, it is specifically about these Black me. But as we know, the more specific and true you can be with a story on stage, the more universal it becomes and the more people can see their experiences played out in front of them.”

Rasell Holt plays Orgun, the older brother. Holt was on his way to a football career and a stint in the Marines when he blew out his knee and ended up taking Acting 101 at UW-Whitewater. The acting bug bit him and he has stayed with it ever since.

Holt was drawn to The Brothers Size by not only the message, but also the poetic dialogue that the actors deliver.

“When I first read this play, there aren’t a lot of shows that I have read where I instantly have a visceral reaction,” Holt said. “It’s usually I read it and I’m like, ‘Well, we’ll see what it looks like on stage.’ This one was the opposite. I read it and something hit me. As an artist, for myself, it was one of the shows where I was like not only will this stretch me in a way how you carry language and being present taking on a principle role, which I haven’t done much of, I was really interested in that aspect to just see if I can do it. I think it is a very difficult show and a very easy one to mess up. I was really excited for that aspect of it on a personal level. And then within my life as a whole, talking about brotherhood and the themes of this show, I come from a very huge family and I am very tight with my brothers. This show hit a cord in me that I think will hit people across the board, but very much hit siblings in a way that I just wanted to continue exploring. Again, not to harp on this too much, it just feels like a lot of shows like this having come around for me to audition for, I am very grateful for the opportunity to do this, doing it here especially. It’s just a chance to breathe and speak these words and walk away from it and say, ‘Yeah, I can do this.’”

Nathan Barlow, who plays Elegba, was smitten by the acting bug in kindergarten.

“I played Puss in Puss and Boots, the title role,” Barlow recalled. “I remember after the play we had this little talk back. In kindergarten, we had a talk back. One of the kids in my class looked at me and said, ‘I want to be just like Nathan.’ And for whatever reason, that stuck with me. And I was like, ‘I have the power to do that to people.’ And I kind of just stuck with it.”

Barlow was drawn to The Brothers Size by the language as well.

“The language is so beautiful,” Barlow said. “I think it is rare to find heightened Black text done a lot of the times. To be able to do that is one of the biggest reasons why I was attracted to it. Also it’s just the production. The first production at the Guthrie in Minneapolis that Gavin was a part of where he played the role that I play now, which is kind of a trip to think about retrospectively. That production directed by my biggest mentor, Marion McClinton who recently passed, just taught me how to be Black again. I don’t know if that really makes sense. It taught me that I can be comfortable in my skin as a Black man in so many different ways. To go through that exploration doing the play has been such a blessing. It’s been great.”

Derrick Moore, who plays Oshoosi, also had his eyes on a football career at Alabama State. But after being declared ‘academically negligent’ as he was terminated from the football program, Moore decided to fill his free time with acting.

“Coming from an HBCU at Norfolk State and Alabama State as well, a lot of the Black playwrights were my training texts,” Moore said. “Of course there was August Wilson, Nilaja Sun with No Child as one of the roles that I played, Lynn Nottage doing Ruins. I’ve done two of Tarell Alvin McCraney’s plays, The Brother Size and Choirboy in which I played AJ, just to name a few.”

Moore had performed in other productions of The Brothers Size and almost took a pass.

“This production, in particular, of the Brother Size, Oshoosi was the main attraction,” Moore said. “I’ve had the privilege of doing this play a few times. I started kind of getting tired of it actually. I understand the privileged position that is. You run a show so many times, it starts to get a little stale on you. I was like, ‘I’m done with Brother Size. I’ll be okay if I don’t do this for another 10 years.’ But the role of Oshoosi, the level of freedom and the level of innocence and independence that he tries to have was a huge draw for me.”

Next issue: The Griot, the characters and more