Watching The America Play is like peeking into playwright Suzan-Lori Parks’ brain as she considered aspects of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination over the years. What immediately came to my mind were the imagery and messages of her Pulitzer Prize-winning Topdog/Underdog, which premiered in 2001. In that one, two brothers named Lincoln and Booth wrestle with family legacy and racism, with the Lincoln character charging customers at an arcade to take their best shot at him.
The America Play, written in 1994, seems a precursor for Parks in grappling with the inner soul of the hole that was left, literally in Lincoln’s head with the assassination and the hole in America that resulted. While her mental gyrations take some getting used to, will try your patience, and even be downright maddening, Parks provides an emotional tapestry of what this hole means. There’s even a poster on the set stating, “The Great Hole of History.”
The main character, the Foundling Father (based on Lincoln’s pivotal role in Emancipation), played with vigor by Elgin Martin, is a gravedigger by trade but also notes with pride that he’s got Lincoln’s physical build. For his side gig, he puts on the beard, dons the stovetop hat, and takes a seat looking off to the side, laughing at a performance of Our American Cousin. Then, with carnival music playing, customers pay a fee, position themselves behind the Lincoln figure, and shoot him in the back of the head. In subsequent scenes, the son of the Lincoln character scavenges for information about his father to the point of obsession. As he uncovers artifacts, his horrific grief from the loss overwhelms him. The youngster’s howls of grief are so pronounced that he seems to be representing the country’s mourning and indelible loss of the actual Lincoln in one of the several fascinating emotional tiers presented.
The America Play requires a bit of determination to sit through the multiple assassination hits and winding scenes, but the full-force emotional catharsis at the end makes the journey well worth it. Director Gerrad Alex Taylor handles the shifting sequences that reflect the Black Experience through time and keeps everyone on target. Ayanna Fowler’s Lucy is steadfast and determined to find any relics from her husband’s past to help her son Brazil face the future. Theodore Sherron III, as the youngster, is inquisitive, emotive, and charismatic. We feel his ache in missing his father, as well as his resolve to get up and keep moving.
Cheryl J. Williams does her usual sound design magic, opening the show with contemporary R&B songs and engaging pop melodies between scenes. Multitalented Billie Krishawn designed costumes ranging from antebellum days of the enslaved in rags and running to freedom to current attire. The centerpiece of the show was a dark gray circle centerstage that took on a life of its own, thanks to remarkable lighting designed by Hailey LaRoe. What started off as a simple, interesting design took on more and more significance throughout the play as it pulsated in vibrant colors and even represented a portal to the other side. These stellar design elements were crucial in telling the embedded stories in The America Play.
That Perisphere could mount this DC-area premiere is no small feat. On the theater’s website, Gerrad Alex Taylor states:
[T]he play is an early experimentation of theatre making on the themes of racial politics that would become major motifs in the writings of Parks’ latter works. This production will not just interrogate the history of America and the voices left out [of] its telling and retelling, but also celebrate the personal history of the artist, Suzan-Lori Parks, and how her commentary and dramatic form grew throughout the years. Our community in the DMV has witnessed several productions of Parks’ plays over the past few years and I think it will be an important and interesting development on our consciousness of Parks’ brilliance to look back at this early play for the first time in our region.
While the experimental nature of The American Play might need an acquired taste to appreciate, from the audience reaction I saw on opening night, the show can be riveting as well. Producing only one or two shows a year, Perisphere Theater is a treasure that stays on top of its game as seen in mounting this metro-area premiere. Their mission is to produce plays “that examine personal and collective history and the notion of history itself.” The America Play is innovative and timeless as it peeks into the country’s consciousness, history, legacy, and even collective grief as we come to grips with ongoing racial and cultural divides, choices, and concepts. Truly, per Faulkner, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past” — as seen in The America Play.
Running Time: 95 minutes with no intermission.
The America Play plays through February 15, 2025, presented by Perisphere Theater performing at The Writer’s Center, 4508 Walsh St, Bethesda, MD. Purchase tickets ($35, general; $30, senior; $20, student) online.
The program for The America Play is online here.
The America Play
By Suzan-Lori Parks
CAST
The Foundling Father: Elgin Martin
Lucy: Ayanna Fowler
Brazil: Theodore Sherron III
Actor 1: James Stringer
Actor 2: Lavender Brio
PRODUCTION TEAM
Director: Gerrad Alex Taylor
Stage Manager: Paige Washington
Scenic Designer & Technical Direction: Tyler Brust
Costume Design: Billie Krishawn
Lighting Design: Hailey LaRoe
Sound Designer: Cheryl J. Williams
Props Designer: Gerrad Alex Taylor
