Theatre 2025: Flex @ Crow's Theatre

On the surface, the play Flex by American playwright Candrice Jones deals with a group of black, seventeen-year-old girls who are the starting five on a high school basketball team called “Lady Train”.  Living in rural Arkansas in the 1990s just as the WNBA (Women’s basketball league) was formed, they strive to make the State finals and hope to be discovered by college scouts.  In actuality, basketball merely serves as a backdrop that allows us to explore the lives of these girls, including their hopes, dreams, challenges, fears and desire for a better life outside of their impoverished community.

Starra is the talented point guard and captain of the team, who has a big chip on her shoulder.  Her need to prove that she is the best makes her a selfish player seeking personal glory over team success.  Growing up playing on makeshift basketball courts in dirt fields, she views success in basketball as her ticket out of her life of poverty in what she calls a “Dirt State”.  It is also a way to honour her deceased mother who was a rising basketball star in school herself and taught Starra to do whatever it takes to make it.

Starra’s ultra-religious cousin Cherise has just received her youth minister’s license and wishes to baptise her teammates but feels conflicted by her sexuality and feelings for fellow teammate Donna.  Donna is the only player who has aspirations beyond basketball, since she has a full scholarship in pre-med at Xavier college in New Orleans.  Sidney is an elite player from Los Angeles who had to move to Arkansas for family reasons and is seen as a major threat by Starra.  Rounding out the starting five is April who is two-months pregnant despite making a pact with her team to abstain from sex during the season and now might be banned from playing by their coach.

Starra is the main protagonist with the largest character arc.  Her insecurities drive her to an act of sabotage against Sidney that is seen as a major betrayal and alienates Starra from her team.  Starra needs to learn humility and embrace the sports tropes (also life tropes) that “There is no ‘I’ in Team” and “A Team is Only as Strong as its Weakest Link”.

The other main story arc relates to April’s pregnancy.  At the start of the play, in solidarity for April’s situation and attempting to convince Coach Pace to allow her to play, all the girls appear at practice wearing “pregnancy bellies” stolen from Home Economics class.  Thinking that it is her only way to play, April’s journey involves deciding whether or not she wants to terminate the pregnancy and if so, how to go about doing it.

The title of the play is named after a basketball strategy (Flex Offence) that involves constant ball movement between the players as they shift positions around the court and set screens to block out their opponents, until one player cuts into an open position to get off an uncontested shot.  The strategy is first drilled during practice and then executed in the State Finals game at the end of the play.  The Flex strategy becomes a metaphor for teamwork, cooperation, self-sacrifice and trust of your teammates.  As the girls learn to perfect the moves throughout the play, it signifies their own personal growth both as athletes and individuals.

As with many Crow’s Theatre shows, the stage was almost “in-the-round” with the audience sitting on three sides.  Half of a basketball court fills the stage with the lines of the backboard lit up to highlight the basket.  Benches on either side of the court where the team sits during games are moved around to form other locations including the seats of a car and sofas from Sidney’s living room.  Of specific interest were a few tuffs of grass emanating from the edge of the court closest to our seats.  These were meant to signify the “dirt courts” that Starra was used to playing on.

It was interesting hearing during the post show talkback that none of the actresses were professional basketball players and came with varying experience in the sport.  They went through a brief training “boot camp” to learn the lingo and moves but there would be no guarantees (just like in professional sports games) whether any particular shot would be made from night to night.  I found a PDF of the script for the play and thought it was fascinating how this was accounted for in the stage directions.  Even in the initial practice, for each shot there are a pair of directions and dialogue separated by a slash that would be performed if the shot was made versus if it was missed.  This culminates in the climax of the play when the final deciding shot is taken in the State Finals.  Depending on whether the shot is made or missed, an entirely different ending has been prepared.  In sports, as in life and now in the live theatre experience of this play, you don’t know from night to night how things will play out.  Regardless of whether LadyTrain wins or loses their big game, the team shows grit, resilience and teamwork, making their coach proud.