Young Lady Sings the Blues

Youth — audacious, openhearted, foolhardy — will be served in "Hoodoo Love," an uneven but affecting play at the Cherry Lane Theatre. Written by the 26-year-old Katori Hall and centering on the struggles of a young black woman in 1930s Memphis, "Hoodoo Love" is an earnest, often naïve story of dreams and heartbreak. And though the play makes its share of youthful mistakes, it also exudes a winsome sincerity that is hard to resist.

The work is an old-fashioned melodrama about the spirited, independent Toulou (Angela Lewis), who leaves her troubled family in the Mississippi Delta to try her luck in Memphis. Toulou dreams of becoming a singer, but she's working as a laundress — until the Ace of Spades (Kevin Mambo), a skirt-chasing bluesman, comes into her life.

Toulou knows restless Ace can't be tied down, yet she yearns to hold onto him — especially after her no-good brother Jib (Keith Davis) shows up unannounced and moves into Toulou's tiny shack. Enter Toulou's neighbor, the wizened Candy Lady (Marjorie Johnson), a practitioner of "hoodoo" who claims she can teach Toulou how to put a spell on Ace that will keep him coming back. Toulou skeptically agrees, not realizing that the charm will touch off a series of fateful events.

This feels like the plot of a musical, and not just because of the blues references. The characters are drawn in bold strokes, and the repeated emphasis on big dreams makes this feel like musical territory. Accordingly, Ms. Hall has fashioned some songs for the characters — mostly performed a cappella, since there's no orchestra and the actors aren't strong musicians. But there is a ramshackle, unpolished feeling to the music that establishes "Hoodoo Love" as a play with songs, not a musical.

As directed by Lucie Tiberghien, "Hoodoo Love" is a curious hybrid. There is a sleek, abstracted set of blue-washed boards and a tin roof, cocked at modern angles (by Robin Vest). Yet the actors' old-fashioned, straight-from-the-gut performances would feel right at home on the kind of meticulously detailed set where you can count the spoons in the kitchen drawer.

The same contradictions exist in the script, which, despite its sharp dialogue and strong character development, feels like a play about the 1930s written by someone born in the 1980s. In its freshest, most piquant moments — an early, frank sex scene, or a heart-to-heart talk among the women — the historical context feels like unnecessary window-dressing.

Yet this is a playwright who uses the 1930s trappings as diorama-like food for the imagination. "Hoodoo Love" relishes its references to black magic, cotton-picking, blues clubs, preachers, outhouses, and locomotives.

But by the third time that ominous train whistle blows, it's clear Ms. Hall is prone to sentimental gestures. For a small play about the hard-knock life of a woman in the Deep South, Ms. Hall produces enough poisons to fuel an entire "Romeo and Juliet."

Nonetheless, the play can be forgiven for its youthful excesses, in part because the characters Ms. Hall has written inspire such heartfelt performances. Ms. Lewis's coltish, emphatic Toulou grows on you as her flame is steadily dimmed by events. As Toulou's wise but deeply flawed elder, Ms. Johnson inspires a surprising depth of emotional response. Mr. Mambo makes a thoroughly believable, handsome, rambling man, and Mr. Davis acquits himself well in the difficult role of Toulou's dissolute, smug brother.

Those performances, largely inspired by Ms. Hall's remarkable dialogue, are cause enough to celebrate the emergence of an intriguing new voice. "They say when a woman heartbroke, she breaks down and cries," Toulou sings in her final song. "When a man heartbroke, he gets on a train. So I'm gonna catch that train."

It's that kind of tender simplicity that makes this an exciting début. And though "Hoodoo Love" veers into sentimentality and runs to cliché too readily, it has something sorely missing in many new plays: heart.

Until December 8 (38 Commerce St. at Bedford Street, 212-989-2020).