Introduction: The Brothers Size - By Douglas Langworthy

Set in San Pere, Louisiana near the Bayou in the “distant present,” The Brothers Size by Tarell Alvin McCraney is a poetic examination of the lives of two brothers and the friend that comes between them. It is part of a trilogy of plays written by McCraney “to understand my interconnectedness with my brothers and sisters.” According to the playwright, the plays are “inspired by Yoruba life and traditions, steeped in Southern rhythms and cadences, and seamed shut with the fire of urban music and dance.”

In The Brothers Size, the characters’ names are taken from the Yoruba religion of  West Africa and have mythological meanings. The older brother is named Ogun, after the shape-shifting god of war and iron, and the younger brother is named Oshoosi, after the deity of the wanderer and the hunter. The third character in the play is named Elegba, after the shape-shifting trickster figure: the embodiment of the crossroads, the messenger of the gods, and the ultimate master of potentiality.

As the story begins, Oshoosi has just gotten out of prison and is on parole. His brother Ogun runs an auto repair shop, and decides that Oshoosi should work at the shop, too.  Their deeply devoted but difficult dynamic – Oshoosi is especially angered by Ogun’s constant references to his time in jail— is complicated by the appearance of Elegba, Oshoosi’s best friend from lock-up. Throughout the play Elegba and Ogun vie for Oshoosi’s loyalty.  Each has his shortcomings: Ogun can’t compete with the bond formed by Elegba and Oshoosi in the pen, and as Elegba says to Ogun: “I can’t never be his brother like you his brother.”

Particularly attuned to the rhythms of speech, The Brothers Size incorporates both realistic dialogue and heightened poetic language. The actors speak their stage directions: in other words, all of the lines that describe movement on stage (eg. “Ogun comes from under the car”) are spoken aloud by the actor they pertain to. It also includes several dream sequences, which have been staged with stylized movement