First Nighter: Affecting “brownsville song (b-side for tray)”

Kimber Lee’s brownsville song (b-side for tray)–the all-lower-case letters are Lee’s stipulation–starts out at a tough level with gray-haired Lena (Lizan Mitchell) angrily declaring that the story about to unfold should not begin with her. While insisting, she does get across that the subject matter is a grandson, Tray (Sheldon Best), who was shot four times and killed as an innocent bystander in a local shoot-out. Thereupon the dead boy’s story gets underway, and it’s an upsetting one, as Lee intends it to be. Clearly, she has in mind putting forth one ghetto youngster to stand for all of the promising young men and women done in by stray bullets and who then turn up in the kind of news coverage that never seems to stop. Tray is a skilled boxer, who’s also a candidate for a college education and a caring brother to younger sister Devine (Taliyah Whitaker). He’s being tutored on his required college essay by Merrell (Sun Mee Chomet), who’s his and Devine’s estranged mother, a woman who lost her bearings after her husband died. By horrific coincidence, the dead husband and father was, like Tray, also killed by four bullets. The admirably and unfailingly good Tray holds down a Starbucks barista job, where Merrell, needing work, lands a position. Tray helps her learn the ropes, and he tolerates his pal Junior (Chris Myers), who’s constitutionally sullen and doesn’t get Tray.