The Black couple go overboard in congratulating their daughter for coming out, donning rainbow T-shirts and displaying a pride banner, but they learn to their shock that Niani is not coming out as queer, but as a Karen; that’s right, a white woman. Taylor Adam Blackman’s “It’s Karen, B***” is one of the half-dozen ten-minute plays, half of them queer-themed, in the fifteenth annual The Fire This Time Festival, which runs through January 28 at The Wild Project.
The play might remind you of another over-the-top satire that aimed to tickle but also draw blood — one that was launched at the same festival seven years ago: Jordan E. Cooper’s “Ain’t No Mo,” which six years later (greatly expanded) made it to Broadway.
In the same year that Cooper’s play opened at the Belasco, at the start of December 2022 (abruptly closing three weeks later), festival founder Kelley Nicole Girod edited the publication of “25 Plays from The Fire This Time Festival” (Methuen Drama), an anthology of work at the festival by early-career playwrights of African and African-American descent, some of whom have gone on to wide recognition — including a Pulitzer Prize, Tony Award nominations, Hollywood gigs — such as Katori Hall, Antoinette Nwandu, Dominique Morisseau, and Marcus Gardley. ALL ARTS is also presenting House Seats: The Fire This Time Festival, free streaming of videos of more than a dozen plays from past seasons of the festival.
The increased attention, this year’s festival director Cezar Williams told me, has resulted in more interest from agents, and more opportunities for the playwrights. I hope it’s also enticed more theatergoers to support and encourage the creation of these short new works, with the understanding that most may be works in progress.
The current crop — all well-served by a five-member cast — are varied in effectiveness, and also in tone. The relative success of “Ain’t No Mo” hasn’t done for The Fire This Time Festival what the success of “Urinetown” did for the (late, lamented) New York International Fringe Festival – inspire a lot of imitators. “It’s Karen, B***…” is the only one of the six works this year that adopts a similar comic tone, and the satire is not as sharply targeted, until the very end (which I should have seen coming.) At one point, NIani-turned-Karen (Danielle Covington), complains about her parents’ push for her always to be exceptional: “I want to be mediocre! I am repulsed at the idea of my ancestor’s wildest dreams! I want to be unexceptional! How come they get to be ordinary? Why do they just get to exist? It’s not fair, it’s not fair, it’s not fair….”
Joël René Scoville’s “Ethel & Ethel” is inspired by the actual relationship between dancer Ethel Williams and Ethel Waters in 1925, which was near the beginning of Waters’ celebrated career as a popular singer and Oscar- and Emmy-nominated actress. Little Ethel, as the dancer is called (Danielle Covington) welcomes Big Ethel (Marinda Anderson) into her Harlem apartment on their second anniversary. If we learn little about the characters, even less about the historical figures (Waters in particular led a colorful and illustrious life), the brief play modestly captures the fear and caution of two women in the public eye who are sweet on one another during sour times for such love.
In Kamilah Bush’s “Mamas and Papas,” Charles (Benton Greene) is frustrated with his rebellious teenage daughter Dottie (Shayvawn Webster), who rejects his parenting and goes out partying. It’s only when Charles’s friend Billy Holliday (Larry Powell) visits that we learn the complicated backstory: Charles is bisexual, had a brief affair with Dottie’s mother but then no hand in raising their child. Dottie’s mother recently died, and Charles has taken Dottie in, but has not told her about the love of his life, Phillip. “Mamas and Papas” would work better as a much longer play, which wouldn’t have to depend so much on dense exposition and could avoid the current abrupt resolution.
That Leelee Jackson has entitled her play “What’s Love Got To Do With It?” might trigger some associations with the Tina Turner song and the movie of her life, which focuses on Tina Turner’s resilience in the face of her abusive first husband. But Jackson’s two-character play is not about too much, but too little: The woman says to the man “you’ve been really good to me, but I guess really good ain’t good enough no more.” The play begins with the couple having sex, which is satisfying to the man (Benton Greene), but unsatisfying to the woman (Danielle Covington), who is spurred to text some friends and announce that she’s going to go out with them. The man says he’s going to go with her. The woman replies: “They not gon let you in. It’s a lesbian bar.” Her two lesbian friends, though only together for two months, have already developed a relationship that the woman envies, having gone camping together, and planning a trip to Italy “to learn how to make pasta or some shit.”
“But you don’t even like pasta.”
“That’s not the point.”
The dialogue shows potential for an interesting comic riff, but the play cuts this short to venture into less engaging territory — an argument (she insists on leaving; he winds up begging her to stay), which has low stakes for the audience, since we learn little about the characters, not even their names.
In Nia Akilah Robinson’s “Why Jamira Gotta Do All Da Werk?”, Jamira (Marinda Anderson) and Kiana (Shayvawn Webster) are dancing together at a club, ostensibly enjoying each other’s company, but subtly tearing each other down. Kiana doesn’t think Jamira should wear wigs so many times; “our hair needs to breathe.” Jamira says her hair does breathe; she doesn’t wear wigs all the time; only at parties, which is the only time Kiana sees her; “we’re party friends.” For her part, Jamira resents Kiana for rejecting a man at the club for being darker skinned; Jamira is herself darker skinned, and accuses her of being prejudiced. But, Kiana replies, the man went up to her and said he only dates light-skinned women; he was the one being prejudiced. “Just making you aware, since we hang out is all,” Jamira says at one point. “Shit is exhausting. we supposed to be having fun.” But Robinson’s dialogue is fresh enough, and the actors persuasive enough, that this back-and-forth is not exhausting to the audience.
In Monique Pappas-Williams’ “The Mural,” Nia (Shayvawn Webster) is surprised in her home by an intruder, who turns out to be her ex-boyfriend, Riz (Larry Powell), who still has a key. As the play progresses, we learn that Riz has spend the last four years in prison, for hanging out with the wrong crowd, that Nia has become a visual artist who gets commissions to do political art – and that Riz is himself an artist. He accuses Nia of doing art because it’s fashionable
“Bullshit… I’m at every protest. I’ve dedicated my work to making a difference!”
“Making a difference to who? You didn’t come to see me! Your chance to make a difference was right in front of you.”
It’s an intriguing accusation, part of the play’s insightful if modest exploration of what it means to be an activist and what it means to be an artist. This makes “Mural” the right play to serve as the last of the line-up in this year’s festival, whose name is inspired by the work of an exemplary artist and activist, James Baldwin.
Photos by Garlia Jones
