Every item handmade by a Haitian has to tell a story of hardship, a businessman named Thomas tells Gigi, who is hoping he will connect his international customers to the luxury goods she sells at her boutique in Haiti.  “The client wants a personal connection with a poor Haitian woman in the slums,” Thomas explains. “When they wear the bags, or wrap their heads before heading to the beach, or when they model their latest swimsuit, they want their consciences to be absolved. They want to believe in their own righteousness. A story does this.”

The line, which comes about a half hour into Dominique Morisseau’s new play “Bad Kreyòl,”  is blunt, surely true, and funny — but also full of uncomfortable ironies.  After all, “Bad Kreyòl” centers on an American who is visiting Haiti; it’s written by an American playwright famously born in Detroit (the setting for many of her plays, including “Skeleton Crew”); and it is opening tonight at Signature Theater, in a co-production with MTC,  for an audience arguably composed primarily of the kind of people that Thomas is talking about. 

Wouldn’t a typical New York theater audience, consciously or not, have expectations about a play set in Haiti, given what’s been in the news lately? Knowing that the play is from an American perspective, might we guess that the story would be how an American, after several stumbles, learns things?

In truth, Morisseau delivers just such a story, but does so with care and intelligence, both warm-hearted and sharp-eyed.

Simone (Kelly McCreary) is visiting her cousin Gigi (Pascale Armand) in Haiti, after the death of their grandmother. Simone’s father was an immigrant from Haiti, but Simone was born in the American suburbs, and hasn’t even paid a visit to the island since she was 12 years old.  

It’s clear from the moment she walks in the door of Gigi’s shop that she knows little about Haitian culture or society, and that she and her cousin don’t get along – and that these two facts are related. But their grandmother’s dying wish was that the two cousins, who are the only surviving members of their immediate families, make an effort to be friends.

It isn’t easy. Gigi asks Pita (Jude Tibeau) to take Simone’s luggage to her room. Simone says she will do it herself. Gigi insists that Pita do it: “It’s how he makes a living.”

Simone hesitates, then confides  “the whole servant thing is kinda weird.” 

“Oh Jesus, ‘servant thing?’” Gigi snaps. “You just got here. It’s too fast to be stuck up. Wait a week at least.” 

We eventually learn that Gigi’s family in effect rescued Pitu from the fate of his uncles, who were all forced to be henchmen for the then-dictator. As Pitu himself puts it: “I grew up here. Got education. Got work. Got spared.”

He may officially be in Gigi’s employ, but they grew up together, he is her best friend, if not her only one, and he gets away with teasing her and taking other liberties that she’s too prim and proud to allow anybody else.

Pitu and Simone also bond. At her request, he connects her to a NGO (non-governmental organization), even though he’s skeptical of them, because she told him she wanted something to do while in Haiti to try to make a difference. This is where she meets Lovelie (Fedna Jacquet) a former prostitute who now makes a living making pillows – but she confides to Simone that she’s being sexually harassed. Simone vows to do something about this.

Simone also encourages Pitu to go to his first meeting of an LGBTQ organization that he’s shyly told her about.

“That’s your affinity space,” she tells him.

“There you go, cousine!” he exclaims. ” Putting together those college degree words.”

“More like institution words. But yeah, that’s what they call ‘em. Where the same kinda folks can find somewhere to be themselves and not feel ‘othered’.” 

“And where is your affinity space, cherie? “

Simone is silent.

“Affinity space” is used several more times by the characters – always getting a laugh – but that, we realize, is what Simone is searching for; it’s one reason she came to Haiti.

It’s not surprising that Simone’s efforts on Pitu’s and Lovelie’s behalf don’t go completely smoothly; again, we expect a story about a well-intentioned American abroad to put her foot in it.  But Morisseau is too savvy a storyteller to make it that simple. Her characters – to use more institution words – have agency.

In a climactic argument between the two cousins, Simone accuses Gigi of using her like a prop to assuage their dead grandmother, rather than treating her like a person with valid feelings and ideas. Gigi responds that they can have a pajama party to exchange feelings and ideas.

“It doesn’t work like that.”

“You keep saying it doesn’t work like this. It doesn’t work like that. Who says how it works? It is American to say how something does and doesn’t work for all people. We are Haitian. We do not follow these rules. We come from people who make their own rules.”

“Bad Kreyòl” doesn’t avoid some of the unfortunate aspects of life in Haiti, although the playwright slips them in, rather than focusing on them. Gigi has to remind Simone when she first arrives that she can’t take a shower right away, because there’s no  water until 5 p.m. Gigi is later aghast that Simone has encouraged Pitu to go to the LGBT meeting, not because she’s prejudiced, but because she fears for his life. When Thomas (Andy Lucien) wants Gigi to tell him the stories of the people who make her scarves and bags, he asks: “Do any of them have AIDS? Are they tempest tossed? Abandoned by families?”

The set includes a rundown metal shack. But somehow even that shack is appealing. Much of the design is alluring – the cheerful boutique, the vivid clothes, the backdrop of picturesque multicolored houses climbing up ap grassy hill —  as are the everyday grace and dignity of the characters we come to know.

Bad Kreyòl
Signature through December 1
Running time: 2 hours and 10 minutes, including an intermission
Tickets: $49 – $128
Written by Dominique Morisseau 
Directed by Tiffany Nichole Greene 
Scenic design by Jason Sherwood, costume design by Haydee Zelideth, lighting design by Alan C. Edwards, co-sound design by Curtis Craig and Jimmy Keys aka “J. Keys”, props supervisors Ned Cían Gaynor, hair, wig and makeup design by Earon Nealey , culture specialist Ann C. James, Haitian language consultant Wynnie Lamour
Cast: Pascale Armand as Gigi, Fedna Jacquet as Lovelie, Andy Lucien as Thomas, Kelly McCreary as Simone, and Jude Tibeau as Pita