DeWanda Wise and Kacie Rogers (Photo by Jeff Lorch)
Reviewed by Deborah Klugman
Geffen Playhouse
Through May 18
RECOMMENDED
Furlough’s Paradise is about many things. Written by a.k. payne and directed by Tinashe Kajese-Bolton, this deep lyrical play features Kacie Rogers and DeWanda Wise as two cousins at a crossroads following the death of the last family member to link them together. The performances are sterling, while the production is a director’s coup, a remarkable meld of stagecraft and portrayal that renders a kaleidoscopic portrait of two individuals of color, at odds with the world and themselves.
As the actors render their feelings with words and body language in the external world they inhabit, the lighting, sound, set, projections and choreography combine to reveal to us the terrors and longings their characters are experiencing underneath.
Born the same year, Mina (Rogers) and Sade (DeWise) are the offspring of fraternal twins Edward and Lashonda, co-valedictorians in high school who lacked the money to go to college. So Edward joined the military while Lashonda, abandoned by her husband, supported herself and her daughter working long hours in a dollar store. This made a difference to their children. For whereas Edward had the means and inclination to press the academically gifted Mina to aspire to professional success, which she did, Sade was not so lucky; her mom, though she loved her daughter, was short on time and short on cash. And sometime in her teens, Sade stumbled off the straight and narrow path, and landed in prison.
The action spans the three days probation that the incarcerated Sade has been allotted to attend her mom’s funeral and grieve her death. It’s never specified what felony Sade has committed, but in alluding to it she speaks of “an eye for an eye.” And her sentence is a long one.
The cousins meet up in Mina’s apartment that she maintains in their hometown to visit occasionally after having sold her family home. After the first fractious hours where Sade’s resentment of her cousin’s more privileged life boils to the surface, the tension abates, and the two begin sharing: their memories, the quandaries they face in the present, their uncertain paths ahead.
Furlough’s Paradise is a rhythmic play, and from first to last, no beat is missed, or moment overplayed. Mina, who works for Google, struggles because she lives a life she’s alienated from, making plans with a woman she isn’t sure she loves. Sade’s issues with freedom are distinctly more tangible; she’s literally behind bars, and she comes to this meeting with the brusque resentment of someone who feels life’s betrayed her. For solace, she dreams of buying a house and sharing it with the community of friends she’s made in prison, including her lover. She’s tough on the outside but her vulnerability is palpable.
Throughout, the actors surf the play’s rhythms without ever blurring the edges of their sharp and detailed portrayals. You never doubt for a moment the web of familial experience that binds them together. The play is both specific and universal — specific as it applies to people of color — Mina’s assimilation comes at a high price — but universal in that the triggers and salves these women encounter work the same for us all.
Scenic designer Chika Shimizu’s interior is purposefully dowdy and nondescript, neither terribly lived-in nor comfortable. It’s the space of a person who doesn’t care much about these things, for whatever reason. There’s an expanse of wall and high up a small window with what looked like the top of an antiquated telephone pole. When scenes change, and moods with them, the wall changes color too (Pablo Santiago), with the stage bathed in a different hue: rose, green, gray, blue. At night, the light turns bright neon, functioning in tandem with Cricket S. Meyers piercing, pulsating sound to underscore the cousins’ nightmares that prompt them to a physical frenzy (choreography by Dell Howlett ). Vivid projections by Yee Eun Nam and Elizabeth Barrett are of speeded-up clocks, of the old neighborhood, of favorite TV shows. Everything comes together to amplify and embellish a profound and poignant story —telling of time, grief, loss, the ties that bind us and the events that tear us apart, the seeds planted in childhood, and choices. It’s about finding your voice in a world that stifles voices, and preserving a shard of dignity even when locked away.
Geffen Playhouse, 10886 Le Conte Ave., Westwood. Wed.-Sat., 8 pm, Sat., 2 pm, Sun., 3 pm and 7 pm; thru May 18. www.geffenplayhouse.com Running time: approximately 80 minutes with no intermission.
