American Heart, or a truth about love between races, Hostage Theater Company, at Cafe Voltaire. Since Hostage artistic director Samuel Lamar Jordan is acting as playwright, director, and 50 percent of the cast, and the other 50 percent is company managing director Lisa Dowda, the “truth” referred to in the title is presumably their own. And some of the scenes in this story of interracial courtship and marriage are refreshingly specific and candid: the massive misgivings that accompany the first introductions to the in-laws, for example. But when Jordan attempts to show the Big Picture the script sinks into cliche, as when the American Woman of European Descent is jeered by her peers for having a boyfriend who’s an American Man of African Descent. (Why don’t we hear what his peers call his girlfriend? And why doesn’t this couple have any friends not focused on race?)
