Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks, the author of last season’s The Harder They Come, returns to her artistic home with an edgy dramedy that celebrates the craft of theater while taking a hard look at history.
The off-off-off-Broadway theater troupe Good Company is putting on a play about Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson. Writer Luce is cast as Sally; her romantic partner, and the play’s director, Mike, is cast as Tom—really, people, what could possibly go wrong?
Despite this clever self-reflexive streak – who doesn’t love a play within a play? – Parks may have bitten off a little more than we can chew. There are bursts of her usual brilliance: Sally & Tom's beautiful language, its grasp on the contradictions of history and emotion, its exploration of the often inadequate platforms Black people are given (if at all) to reckon with the past and hope for the future. But the meta-theatrical play stuffs in too many numerous character threads as Sally & Tom toggles between onstage and backstage at Good Company, where the character’s insights and anxieties come out.
The subtlety, cleverness and humanity with which “Sally & Tom” approaches the story of Hemings and Jefferson, dazzlingly doubled in the story of the troupe putting it on, come as no surprise at all. They are the hallmarks of an author incapable of writing a line unfilled with the bewildering burden — or is it the treasure? — of human contradiction. Indeed, Parks begins with an unprovable yet also undisprovable thesis. She has Luce, the author and star of “The Pursuit of Happiness,” decree: “This is not a love story.”
2024 | Off-Broadway |
Public Theater Off-Broadway Premiere Production Off-Broadway |
Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
---|---|---|---|
2024 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Costume Design of a Play | Rodrigo Muñoz |
2024 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Wig and Hair | J. Jared Janas |
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