Constellation Theatre Company plays with fire in Aleshea Harris’ scintillating tragi-comedy Is God Is. Winner of the 2016 Relentless Award and a 2017 OBIE Award for playwriting, Harris’ play weaves biblical mythology and hip-hop into a road epic about twin sisters on the brink of vengeance. Fiercely directed by KenYatta Rogers, Is God Is is unapologetically twisted, darkly funny, and wildly entertaining.
The play begins, as the script details, in the deep “Dirty” South—a blazing inferno, where out of the fire step the play’s soon-to-be antiheroes Anaia (Morgan Danielle Day) and Racine (Devin Nikki Thomas). Early dialogue reveals these fraternal twin sisters wear the physical scars of a house fire that took place years earlier. Aided by Alison Samantha Johnson’s makeup design, Racine’s scars remain primarily on her back while Anaia’s are significantly more visible.
The plot escalates with unprecedented speed as Anaia and Racine respond to a letter from their mother (Jasmine Joy), who they believed had died years ago. The sisters refer to her as “God,” but when they finally meet face-to-face, God is confined to a standing hospital bed, snarled with medical cables and moments from death. Navigating her character’s physical restrictions, Joy is hilarious and shattering as the dictatorial matriarch. During an expository but nevertheless seminal monologue, God reveals who started the fire all those years ago. While this damning monologue is well-delivered, a simultaneous and largely unnecessary sequence of shadow-puppetry occupies much of the audience’s attention—a misleading venture from which the play quickly recovers.
Harris’ Afropunk odyssey additionally serves as a biting examination of cyclical violence.
When all is said and done, God has but one request: “Make your daddy dead dead dead” and to leave a path of destruction in his wake. Reluctant at first, Anaia and Racine promptly head west.
James J. Johnson supports the cast as Chuck Hall, a has-been lawyer with a sordid past and a love of bermuda shorts. Michelle Proctor Rogers plays Angie, a scorching soccer mom with revenge plans of her own. Ethan Hart and Corbin Ford skillfully depict the play’s second set of twins Riley and Scotch (yes, named after the alcohol), respectively, and finally actor ELI EL conjures up a spine-chilling shadow of a man and the final stop on this journey of revenge.
Choreographer Ama Law infuses hip-hop sequences between scenes—making Constellation’s production feel less like a “road play” and more like a fast-paced hallucination. The sound design by nick tha 1da uses nostalgic beats, while simultaneously eliciting the same phantasmagorical intensity of the script itself. John D. Alexander’s smoky-hued lighting design is consistently impressive while scenic designer Shartoya R. Jn.Baptiste navigates the difficulties of placing Harris’ large-scale epic on a black box stage. The set is initially conceived as a cavernous, rustic shell but Jn.Baptiste adds more and more realistic details with each new location—transporting audiences from a barren field in the Southern United States to a dollhouse-like abode at the top of a hill. The overall design is commendable, if not overpopulated.
Lest anyone underestimate how violent this play actually gets, Casey Kaleba’s fight choreography supports this production’s tricky but effective juxtaposition of the physically gruesome and the comically absurd. Equipped with nothing but a “rock in a sock,” Anaia and Racine are recklessly determined and Day and Thomas are tirelessly entertaining in these roles. Each the dramatic foil to the other, Thomas wins our attention easily as the daring and athletic Racine, while Day casts a more surreptitious spell over audiences as the childlike Anaia. Costumed by Danielle Preston, the young women teeter between girlhood and adulthood—at one point symbolically trading their overalls and T-shirts for expensive lingerie.
Harris’ script is exceptional, there is no doubt. But with so much to tackle in this play, it is also easy to see where a production could go wrong. Thankfully, Rogers strikes balance between violence and comedy, and this 95-minute saga is fully wrought with action, emotion, and intrigue. Constellation’s production may be a little hazardous but it has a rare magnetism not to mention a drop-dead cast.
Constellation Theatre Company presents Is God Is, written by Aleshea Harris and directed by KenYatta Rogers, runs through July 14 at Source Theatre. constellationtheatre.org. $20–$45.