STAGE / NANCY CHURNIN : Mamas Knew Best in Raising This Daughter

SAN DIEGO —  Shay Youngblood’s first play, “Shakin’ the Mess Outta Misery,” tells the story of a young black girl who learns to become a woman through the wisdom of several big mamas--the older women who bring her up.

It parallels Youngblood’s own life. An only child, her mother died at 21 of a pelvic inflammation, when the playwright was just 2 1/2. Now 32, Youngblood was raised by great grandmothers and great aunts in Columbus, Ga. Her father, now dead, lived in California.

“There were literally at least eight mothers. I was sort of the little orphan, everybody’s little girl, community property,” she recalled on the phone from Providence, R.I., where she was studying for a master of fine arts degree in play writing at Brown University.

The show, produced by Southeast Community Theatre, opens at the Lyceum Space tonight and runs through Aug. 29. Southeast’s artistic director, UC San Diego professor Floyd Gaffney, will direct, and his daughter, UCSD senior Monique Gaffney, stars.

The play begins when the central character, referred to as Daughter, enters the last Big Mama’s house after her burial. She conjures the memories of the summer when she had her first period, and how the Big Mamas eased her transition into womanhood by telling her stories from their own memories: stories about racism, sex, men, money, faith and religion.

When Youngblood was born, her Big Mamas were already in their 50s; they started dying off when she was in her 20s. She wrote about the Big Mamas over a period of four or five years as a way of keeping alive the people she was losing.

“I was really possessed to tell these stories, and to tell them as faithfully as I could,” she said.

“I was a very silent child. I spent a lot of time listening to stories that maybe I wasn’t supposed to hear. As they started to pass away, I would ask them about their lives, and they would say it wasn’t important. But I decided to give them a voice. They had carried me through some really hard times. They were always there for me, there was always a strength that made me believe that I could come through anything, that I could depend on them and God.”

She has worked in the Peace Corps, as a house painter, an artist’s model and as an au pair girl in France. She even delivered phone books, but she has always written on the side--usually starting after 10 p.m. and continuing for at least two hours.

Her work was published in a collection called “Big Mama Stories” in 1989. But even before the stories were in print, she thought of turning them into a play. It premiered in 1988 at the Horizons Theatre in Atlanta and has since been produced around the country, but not in New York. When it played the West Coast Ensemble in Hollywood in 1991, Sidney Poitier saw it and asked Youngblood to write a movie script based on the play, which she recently completed.

Daughter’s story, Youngblood said, “is about believing in yourself and your dreams. There’s an African proverb that says, ‘When you pray, move your feet.’ There are people who have a lot of dreams and say, ‘That’s too hard’ or ‘I want to play it safe.’ ”

She credits her own Big Mamas for giving her the courage to pursue her dreams. And for giving her the inspiration for this work.

The title, “Shakin’ the Mess Outta Misery,” was something one of her grandmothers used to say.

“When the street lights would go on and I went home and there was nobody to play with, my grandmother would talk about how blessed and lucky I was. Sometimes I could not be consoled and she would say, ‘Just shake the mess outta misery,’ meaning (do) not let things get you down, not let anything get in the way.

“Sometimes when I listen to the play, I don’t feel I wrote it because so much of it was channeled through the Big Mamas,” she said. “I lost them so quickly and so many of them. It was very difficult and still is. But they’re here and they always will be. At my elbow. I have to keep remembering that.”

Performances are 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday and 7 p.m. Sundays with Sunday matinees at 2:30 through Aug. 29. Tickets are $12. At the Lyceum Space, 79 Horton Plaza, San Diego, 235-8025.

The Old Globe Theatre is bringing back “Forever Plaid”--its record-breaking musical about The Plaids, a close-harmony group, on Nov. 13. The show, written, directed and choreographed by Stuart Ross, was a sell-out during its initial and return engagements last season. Casting will be announced at a later date. The original San Diego cast is now performing in Beverly Hill’s Canon Theatre for an indefinite run. Call 239-2255.

Meanwhile, the La Jolla Playhouse’s hit run of its own record-breaking “Tommy” has been extended again for the fourth time through Oct. 4, for a total engagement of 13 weeks. This is the final extension as the sets get loaded in for the Playhouse’s last play of the season, “Much Ado About Nothing,” Oct. 5. Call 534-3960.

NewWorks Theatre, a 6-year-old company with a mission to bring new plays--originals and adaptations--to the stage, has announced a three-play season at its new home in the Horton Park Plaza Hotel, downtown.

NewWorks will open with three one-act comedies about older Americans, titled “3” from Sept. 12-27. The one-acts are “Save Me a Place at Forest Lawn” by Lorees Yerby, “Blind Date” by Horton Foote and “I’m Herbert” by Robert Anderson. “A Forgotten Woman,” Timothy Gerald Ash’s drama about the life of suffragette Anna Dickinson and her 1890s jury trial, will open Oct. 30. “The Magic Christmas Window,” a Christmas show for children, will run Dec. 19-31. Call 268-9142 or 262-6162.

PROGRAM NOTES: Ben Halley Jr. and Larry Golden will co-star in the American premiere of Athol Fugard’s new work, “Playland,” a La Jolla Playhouse production opening at the Lyceum Stage downtown Aug. 30. Halley starred in the Playhouse’s “Big River” and “Twelfth Night.” Golden, a television and Broadway veteran, starred in the Old Globe’s “Caligula” back in the 1970/71 season at the Cassius Carter Centre Stage. The play is about a black man and a white man and their struggle to overcome apartheid in contemporary South Africa. Call 534-3960. . . .

An interpreted performance of Marga Gomez’s autobiographical one-woman show, “Memory Tricks,” will be presented at the Hahn Cosmopolitan Theatre on Tuesday. Tickets are $10. Call 234-9583 for tickets or Fresh Dish Productions at 298-4916 for further information. . . .

Theatre E, a new theater company founded by members of UC San Diego’s Master of Fine Arts program in theater, plans to pick up where Sledgehammer Theatre left off in building theater spaces to fit their shows. While the once-wandering Sledgehammer is now ensconced in St. Cecilia’s (formerly known as the Sixth Avenue Playhouse), Theatre E will premiere Karl Gajdusek’s “Taxman Bronte Blues” at 715 4th Ave., a downtown storefront in the Gaslamp Quarter from Aug. 20-30. Call 483-1426. . . .

Shelly Garrett’s “Beauty Shop,” Part 2, modestly billed as “The 1 Black Stage Play in America,” will be presented Aug. 25-30 at the Spreckels Theatre. Call 278-TIXS or 235-9500. . . .

“Last Laughs,” a pilot featuring young African American comedians, will be taped at the Lyceum Stage, downtown Friday at 8 p.m. and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. The line-up includes K. L. Hughley, Vince D., Edwonda White and James Rockfeller (X-Rocke III). For tickets, call 235-8025.

CRITIC’S CHOICE

‘MEMORY’ PLAY

Marga Gomez’s one-woman show, “Memory Tricks,” explores the touching and often funny relationship between Gomez and her glamorous mother, a one-time professional dancer, whom she struggled all her life to get close to.

“Memory Tricks” would be well served by more insight into Gomez and less of the and-then-this-happened-style exposition, but on the whole, this is a remarkable and moving piece, even if it still needs some work.

At 8 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday with Sunday matinees at 2 through Aug. 30. Tickets are $10-$20. At the Hahn Cosmopolitan Theatre, 444 4th Ave., San Diego, 234-9583.