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It’s several months into the pandemic of 2020 and Ladybird Manifold is a hand sanitizing, 6-feet distancing, no hugging, rule abiding black woman living in deep east Texas. Her mother, Vernita, has called and asked her to meet at their fishing spot to, Ladybird assumes, fish. Within moments she finds out this was a ruse to get her down to the bayou to help her mother in what turns out to be a very dire situation.
So begins Kristen Adele Calhoun’s new play, “Black Cypress Bayou”, a funny, insightful, and dangerous ride into the lives of four black women whose lives are inextricably linked by blood, lived experience, trauma and tradition. I somehow missed the word “hilarious” in the play’s description and yes, it’s an odd and fascinating combination of deep ancestral wounds and the ways in which we can find ourselves in crazy, to the point of hilarity, situations. It’s a tricky balance that ultimately Calhoun gets right. I found myself laughing out loud while simultaneously being terrified and eventually genuinely moved by the profound nature of the story.
It only takes the image of each of the women in the story carrying guns and knives to recognize that there is being Black in America and then there’s being Black in places like east Texas. These women inherently know they can’t call the police in their time of need – they call each other, knowing they must figure it out on their own.
Veteran actor Kimberly Scott is killing the game and brings the sass borne out of wisdom as the no nonsense mother, Vernita. Scott struck just the right balance of comedy and a vulnerability that brings the emotional intensity when it counts. Brandee Evans is compelling as Ladybird, crackling with an exacting presence that can exhaust those who love her. Evans is very funny and it’s a fascinating watch to see Ladybird navigate the situation and grow in the process. Angela Lewis is a delight as spitfire sister RaeMeka and has great love/hate sister chemistry with Evans while Amber Chardae Robinson is at once earthy and ethereal as the mysterious Taysha Hunter.
The design team does an outstanding job of turning the intimate Audrey Skirball Kenis theater into a lush, swampy, enigmatic Texas bayou that has you almost perspiring and swatting mosquitoes with a sense of deeply rooted pain and protection within every tree. Setting the bows to Beyonce’s newly released “Texas Hold ‘Em” adds a perfect wink at the end of this exhilarating tale.
Black Cypress Bayou runs through March 17, 2024 at the Audrey Skirball Kenis Theater at Geffen Playhouse located at 10886 Le Conte Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024
TICKET INFORMATION
Tickets currently priced at $30.00 – $129.00. Available by phone at 310.208.2028 or online at www.geffenplayhouse.org.
