The Brothers Size spotlights two brothers—Ogun Size (André Holland) and Oshoosi Size (Alani iLongwe)—and their trickster friend Elegba (Malcolm Mays) who tests their bond. The show is underscored by a talking drum (played by percussionist Munir Zakee), story-forward movement, and a radical sense of play. As the realities of these men from the bayou of Louisiana and the Yoruba Orisha on which they are based often feel entangled, The Brothers Size is a piece that makes myth of men who find freedom and direction in relationship to each other.
The play’s revival at The Shed meets New York City in simplicity, inviting the audience’s spiritual imagination with respect to traditional Yoruba conventions of performance. With imagined props and a sparse set only outlined in material akin to salt, the audience is invited to play in the play, too—creating an imaginative liminality that audiences project their own vision of the characters’ world into. The production reminds us that theater, stripped of spectacle, can be the richest ritual playground.
Playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney often queers the lens through which black men are perceived to fragment, complicate, and liberate their narratives, which is a signature in his brilliant body of work that The Brothers Size exemplifies (much like his Academy Award-winning screenplay of Moonlight, co-written with Barry Jenkins). In addition, the magic in this piece is in his refusal to overexplain the myth so we might experience its mythic tone instead.
The text itself reads as a poem, suffused with multi-layered entendres and contextual gems that, if you catch them, beautifully complicate the relationships these men have to reality, desire, and each other. But McCraney’s tender and intentional co-direction in partnership with Bijan Sheibani liberates the pen by, in the spirit of Elegba, generously ushering us between emotional tones—from the characters’ sobering realities to a mythical, convincing sense of possibility—right when we need them.
The production’s simplicity also allows the performance conventions and aesthetics to sing boldly and move freely. Juel D. Lane’s movement vocabulary offers visceral translations of McCraney’s deeply rhythmic poetics such that one couldn’t exist as fully without the other. The costumes, designed by Dede Ayite, were subtle and yet highly symbolic, suggesting the colloquial nature of Yoruba gods, or the epic, majestic nature of our brothers.
André Holland approaches the structure-driven eldest brother Ogun Size with an unexpected warmth. Holland is known for bringing effortless authenticity to roles rooted in realism, like those in Moonlight and Selma. And yet, in this highly-stylized, interdisciplinary play that invokes surrealism—especially in the role of a man who, at times, commands intimidating authority and protective prowess over his brother—Holland never loses his signature ease in the character. Holland also originated the role of Elegba in the 2009 production of The Brothers Size, which perhaps catalyzes a clever, poignant dynamic in his tension with Mays’ Elegba.
Alani iLongwe’s physical range in his portrayal of Oshoosi Size was remarkable on its own, but in the realm of off-broadway theater, it could also be seen as revolutionary. McCraney writes that Ogun, like many people, expects a man like Oshoosi who is finding footing and drive in post-incarcerated life to be “hardcore, dark and mad / as hell.” Alani’s liberated, buoyant physicality in his portrayal of Ogun’s “baby brother” adds a relieving and truthful intricacy to his character that is not often seen in theater, particularly not in stories told about black men. iLongwe’s performance subverts any pigeonhole of Oshoosi’s trope to mere “delinquent” naivete; his Oshoosi’s playfulness, whimsy, and occasional negligence came with a wit and wisdom that honors his complexity.
Malcolm Mays’ Elegba lingers as critical infrastructure to the form of the play itself. Mays brought the quality of Elegba’s duality to life with impeccable, almost intuitive range, dancing from whimsical embodiment to archival vernacular to colloquial ease with incredible intention and timing. Also, though women in the play are mentioned only in parables and are excluded from subjectivity, Mays embodies Elegba’s unbounded fluidity, even in his perceived masculinity, that opens new roads into the story’s gripping action.
There was a fourth brother; the drums on percussionist Munir Zakee “talks” with the audience and characters in lively rhythmic riddle. Technically, his performance notably accompanies the musical text with drum breaks and underscoring between scenes, emphasizing the musicality of McCraney’s writing and the actors’ tempo. But there’s something enchanting about Zakee’s performance as well; it provides a sonic channel, from a third space on the stage, that activates our visceral connection to the rhythm of the play, often making it hard for us not to move with the characters.
The production feels timely for many reasons, especially in a global moment that is desperate for continued systemic violence and erasure—and for our narratives to reflect that trauma. In a time when even making and showcasing art to imagine ourselves outside of oppressive realities are being threatened, The Brothers Size effortlessly resists our time with a timeless story about freedom, love, brotherhood, and possibility in the space between reality and mythical play.
The Brothers Size is running at The Shed in New York City until September 28.