`MULES' PLODS ALONG A PREDICTABLE PATH

Play grinds out lesson about poverty and drugs

MULES: Drama. By Winsome Pinnock. Directed by Diane Wynter.

(Through November 8. At the Magic Theatre, Building D, Fort Mason, San
Francisco. Tickets $18-$32. Call (415) 441-8822.)

Sociology is a menace to good theater, and ``Mules,'' which opened the
Magic Theatre's season Tuesday, is steeped in it.

British playwright Winsome Pinnock's drama about poor female drug couriers
feels like a documentary crammed uncomfortably into theatrical form.

The three actresses skitter in and out of various costumes and accents all
night, but they slog to a thudding beat in ``Mules,'' originally
commissioned by a British troupe that works in prisons.

The lives of two Jamaican sisters, a Liverpool runaway and a slick
recruiter might be compelling if we could see and hear the texture of their
world up close. But the stiff dialogue, clunky narrative, flights of
contrived lyricism and a herky-jerky production put the characters at the
wrong end of a telescope.

``The ghetto isn't ingrained,'' the temptress Bridie (Tina Marie Murray)
tells two sisters who scratch out a living selling lingerie on the streets
of Kingston. ``It's a stain. Use the right soap, and you can wash it out.''

Lyla (Andrea Harris) is skeptical about the fancy lifestyle Bridie offers
women who smuggle drugs out of the Caribbean. But her sister, Lou (the
ingratiating Dawn-Elin Fraser), is giddy at the prospect of air travel and
first-class hotels. It's her only way out of poverty, she believes, a
premise the play never explores.

Bridie's other drug-running mule is Allie (Harris), the runaway adrift on
the streets of London. Pinnock takes a Dickensian view of society's
cruelty, and the waifish Allie is her vessel. Abused by a stepfather and
victimized by two sets of street people, Allie finally relents.

``I've been f-over once too many times,'' she declares in a boilerplate
speech, and signs on with Bridie.

``Mules'' runs an entirely predictable course. The women have their brief
moment of high-living glory before the betrayals, prison terms and other
humiliations set in. Bridie may look like a world-beater, but she's just
part of the food chain, too.

The material has a certain gravitational pull, as the women are dragged
down and try to stumble forward. But neither the play nor director Diane
Wynter's production finds a way to ignite it theatrically. The flashing
lights (design by Kevin Cain) and bursts of rock and reggae music don't do it.

The three hardworking performers crisscross Evin Sanna Olsen's barren white
and corrugated tin set to play 12 roles. The inefficient costume changes
stall what little momentum ``Mules'' has. Fraser gives the liveliest and
most versatile performance, whether she's playing a Nigerian woman's
agonized death or Lou's eager yearning for a bigger world than she knows in
Kingston. Her longing gaze, in the play's nicely ironic final scene, has
more substance and shading than anything else.

``Mules'' delivers the self-evident news that poverty is a trap and so is
the drug business that promises an escape. The piece might make a forceful
impact in women's prisons, where it's been performed. Onstage at the Magic,
it's a grind.

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski