Theater preview: “Shakin’ the Mess Outta Misery”

“Shakin’ ” the family tree

It’s the ultimate reunion. Different “branches” of the “Shakin’ the Mess Outta Misery” family tree have come together to form the cast of Horizon Theatre’s upcoming revival. Here’s a brief synopsis:

Amber Iman could be seen as the consummate professional. Or just an incredibly patient one. Later this week, she’ll debut in a stage role many actresses would give their agent’s left arm to play.

It’s about time. She learned her lines 22 years ago.

“Shakin’ the Mess Outta Misery” opens Friday at Horizon Theatre, the first time in more than two decades that the Little Five Points company has revived the funny and intensely moving play that helped put it and its novice creator on the map.

That 1988 world premiere was a first for Horizon, then in its fifth year, and for Columbus native Shay Youngblood, who had never even written a play before. It featured eight African-American actresses, one of whom, Margo Moorer, was returning to the stage after giving birth 18 months earlier.

Every day during rehearsals, Moorer’s toddler, Amber Iman, came to the theater with her. Every night during the hit play’s run, the little girl watched from the audience.

“She memorized all the dialogue,” Moorer laughingly recalled during a rehearsal last week. “Night after night, this little girl was sitting next to someone who’d paid $20 for a ticket, and her lips were moving along as each character spoke.”

Mother and daughter will finally get the chance to share Horizon’s stage when “Shakin’ the Mess Outta Misery” opens Friday for a seven-week run. But Moorer won’t be Iman’s only “mama” up there. Nor is Iman the only “Daughter” in a group that’s just as sassy, mutually supportive and unconventionally entangled offstage as the “family” in Youngblood’s script.

“It’s like a reunion of sorts,” Youngblood, now a painter and novelist in Texas, said of the one-of-a-kind cast assembled for this production. “It’s like coming back around to the original life force of the play.”

A ‘family’ affair

Based on Youngblood’s own childhood experiences, “Shakin’ the Mess Outta Misery” is the story of “Daughter” and the women who come together to raise her after her birth mother dies. Each has her own name and distinct personality, from Aunt Mae, who sells liquor (and more) out of her kitchen, to Miss Tom, who wears pants and shares a house with her, uh, sister.

Collectively, they are known as the “big mamas.”

“A ‘big mama’ is someone who gives you a soul gift, who gives you the gift of attention and time and concern and loves you just because of who you are,” explained Youngblood, who developed the play with Horizon and original director Glenda Dickerson from her short stories. “A big mama always sits in the front row and supports your interests.”

Enter Iman, who’s gone from toddler in the audience to playing Daughter in this revival. The role was originated at Horizon in 1988 by Atlanta actress Marguerite Hannah, who’s back as one of the big mamas in this production. As is Tonia Jackson, who was Daughter in a well-received production at Minneapolis’ Penumbra Theatre Co. in the mid-1990s.

But wait, it gets better. Or maybe more Freudian, depending on how you look at it.

Moorer, Iman’s real-life mother, is playing Auntie Mae. And Andrea Frye, who directed “Shakin’ the Mess” the last time it was done at Horizon, in 1989, is playing the Big Mama — that’s the name of the character who physically takes in Daughter and serves as the de facto leader of the group.

These experienced actresses all say they welcome the challenge of tackling different roles while also making a life-illustrates-art point about raising something up by raising it up together. And in a world where it frequently seems the only available roles for actresses are sexy ingenue and, well, Betty White, the full range of juicy parts is a welcome change. (Though, following the time-honored thespians’ code, all the players are coy about their real ages).

Man among ‘divas’

Still, it’s gotta be tough, right? Like starring in “Hamlet” while a couple of former Melancholy Danes fill other roles onstage and critique your every move. Or, having once been Harry Potter, getting recast as Dumbledore in the remake.

Not a problem, says Jackson, who’s so busy with her new role — or roles; she actually plays three different “Shakin’” characters — she has no time to do much more than appreciate the play from another perspective.

“It’s not weird so much as wonderful to watch,” said Jackson about seeing Iman walk in her shoes as Daughter, who is a grown woman when the play begins. Returning home for the funeral of the last remaining big mama, she starts flashing back in time as far as age 12.

“I had my own ‘big mamas’ raising me up and challenging me [in the Penumbra production],” Jackson continued. “So it’s amazing now to find myself as one of them, but in my own way.”

It’s not unheard of for certain popular plays and roles to keep being revived (that fellow Hamlet again). What is rare, according to the current production’s director, is for so many actresses with their own connections to a show all to end up in the same cast.

“It speaks to the power of the play that 20 years later, people still relate to it,” director Tom Jones said. “Because of the success of the piece nationally, so much of what different people bring to and from it is all ending up back here at its original ‘home site.’ ”

He’s the lone man standing among a bunch of “divas,” a word Jones deploys as a compliment.

“You don’t have to spend four weeks working with them, getting them up to speed,” he said appreciatively, ignoring the hoots his comments elicited in the hot and humid rehearsal room. “They care. They know what they’re doing.”

Finding their places

Indeed, any doubts about that were quickly dispelled as the rehearsal began and the eight actresses quickly disappeared into their respective roles. Again and again they fine-tuned an early scene in which the big mamas dance and swirl around Daughter like so many fantastic memories come back to life.

There’s Miss Mary, “who can see things in dreams and will tell it all to you if you don’t stop her,” according to Jackson, who portrays her. And Miss Corrine (Hannah), the beauty parlor operator who’s into everybody’s business as well as their hair. And Miss Lamama (Naomi Lavette), who’s no longer married to a man from Africa but still dresses and talks as if she is.

When confusion briefly cropped up between Moorer and Iman, it had nothing to do with their suddenly remembering they were mother and daughter offstage. Instead, it had everything to do with Daughter and Auntie Mae working out how not to step on each other’s lines.

For Hannah, the original Daughter who’d been here before with the duo, this was shaping up to be no ordinary revival.

“For a piece like this to come full circle on- and offstage, for us, it’s precious,” said Hannah, who quoted Daughter at the end of the play to underscore her point: “‘I keep their gifts in my heart and I pass them on.’”

Iman flashed her castmates a conspiratorial grin.

“She’s good. She needs to play Daughter!”

Then/Now plays

Marguerite Hannah Played Daughter in 1988Miss Corrine

Tonia Jackson Played Daughter in 1992 Miss Mary/Miss Tom/Miss Shine

Margo Moorer Played Maggie/Dee Dee in 1988 Aunt Mae

Andrea Frye Directed “Shakin” in 1989 Big Mama

Amber Iman Saw her mother perform in 1988 Daughter

The 1988 world premiere starred some of metro Atlanta’s finest actresses, including:

● Elizabeth Williams-Omilami: Played Miss Lamama, she now runs Hosea Feed the Hungry and Homeless, the charity started by her father, the late civil rights leader Hosea Williams. She also continues to act, most recently alongside Oscar winner Sandra Bullock in “The Blind Side.”

● Carol Mitchell-Leon: Played Miss Mary and Miss Shine, she went on to teach at Clark Atlanta University, appear in films like “Fried Green Tomatoes” and Tyler Perry’s “Diary of a Mad Black Woman.” Married to Tony-nominated director Kenny Leon from 1987 to 1998, she was widely acknowledged as one of the city’s finest stage actresses up until her death from kidney complications in January 2009.