AmericanTheaterWeb Original News & Reviews

With his new play Southern Promises, Thomas Bradshaw serves up a healthy dose of wry as he transports theatergoers back to Antebellum Virginia and a plantation where almost everything done in "God's name" is decidedly un-Christian. There's a lot that's familiar about Bradshaw's tale –some of it is, in fact, positively Shakespearean – yet never has the hypocrisy of slave owners or their slaves' plights been so cuttingly and jarringly funny.

"Promises" centers on what happens in the days and weeks following the death of Isaiah (Peter McCabe), a plantation owner, who, in his will, had emancipated all of his slaves. Elizabeth (Lia Aprile), Isaiah's wife immediately works to see that her husband's wishes are not carried out. When David (Jeff Biehl) arrives to execute his brother's will, he's surprised by Elizabeth's position, but agrees to allow her to retain the slaves, provided she accepts his marriage proposal, which is being sanctioned by John (Hugh Sinclair), Elizabeth's pious and pro-slavery minister brother from New York. She's initially hesitant to accept – after all she has some secrets to keep – but she soon relents, and soon she and David are celebrating mass, celebrated by her brother, in their home while swilling mint juleps.

Meanwhile, the plantation's two house slaves, Benjamin (Erwin E.A. Thomas) and Charlotte (Sadrina Johnson), must endure both physical and sexual abuses at the hands of their master and mistress. Both David and Elizabeth aver that any of their actions against these two is committed according to "God's will" or in the name of saving the souls of the slaves. The phrase "God's will," in fact, becomes a ironic leit motif in Bradshaw's script.

It's a tribute to director Jose Zayas' staging that audiences laugh heartily throughout much of "Promises," which is hardly the stuff of comedy. More often than not the script is almost a kind of racial Grand Guignol and Zayas' production, on a handsome multi-tiered set from designer Ryan Elliot Kravetz, beautifully navigates the piece's tricky duality. So, too, do the performers, particularly Aprile and Biehl, who are required to say and do particularly vile things, even as they strive to ensure that the words and actions incite laughter.

Bradshaw remains one of the city's most audacious and provocative playwrights. Southern Promises may inspire mirth, but it's hardly of the refreshing sort; it's more like a bracing theatrical shot.

---- Andy Propst

The Passion Project continues through September 27 at P.S. 122 (150 First Avenue). Performances are Wednesday through Saturday at 8:30pm, Sunday and Monday at 7pm (no performance Sept. 15). Tickets are $18.00 and can be purchased by calling 212-352-3101. Further information and online ticketing is available at www.ps122.org.