Next weekend is not the weekend to stay home for Central Florida theatregoers, especially not those who are interested in riveting theatrical stories that center the female experience. Over the past weekend, I was lucky enough to catch not one but two such plays, both can’t-miss pieces that featured all-female casts.
Both are also exciting and unique pieces that are well-worth seeing on the strengths of their stellar casts alone. But in terms of tone, scope, and style, they’re otherwise total opposites.
Well, maybe not total opposites. Thematically, both are concerned with illustrating what the desires of powerful men can cost vulnerable women. And both, in their way, demonstrate the persistence of feminine strength and spirit in an oppressive world that seeks to suppress both.
There are a few more surface commonalities between Theater West End’s For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/ When the Rainbow is Enuf… and The Ensemble Company’s Bernarda Alba, most notably their shared use of music, dance, and impressionistic staging as key storytelling tools.
I was equally awed by both pieces, but to help you decide which is more your vibe: there’s more fun and uplift to be had in the often-playful “For Colored Girls…” but its fractured, collage-like approach comes at the expense of a certain narrative cohesion. In contrast, Bernarda Alba focuses almost claustrophically on the sorrowful fate of its central family— telling a more traditionally satisfying story in the process.
This difference in vibes can be further illustrated by an obvious difference in color palates, with For Colored Girls… embracing a radiant rainbow aesthetic to Bernarda Alba’s monochromatic mood of mourning.
Let’s delve more deeply first into the darker Bernarda Alba, a white-hot drama that plays out against black-box walls. This hidden gem of a musical with lyrics and book by Michael John LaChiusa was first presented off-Broadway in 2006. If you think you recognize the name, you might be thinking not of the play at hand but the more frequently produced play that it was adapted from—Federico García Lorca’s 1936 play The House of Bernarda Alba.
If you never got around to reading that one, no worries—a grippingly staged prologue sequence quickly gets the basics across. The title character is a twice-widowed matriarch, and the inciting incident here is the death of her second husband. He, named Antonio, was a wretched skirt-chaser who had had no qualms about amusing himself with even his own stepdaughter Angustius—the child of Bernarda’s first husband.
Bernarda’s younger four daughters are children of Antonio’s. Having been hardened by his betrayals, she becomes a tyrannical ruler of the household in his absence—denying the daughters freedom, suitors, and agency.
The girls long for romance and freedom, but only Angustius has a potential match who has met her mother’s high standards. Two of her sisters are particularly jealous—Martirio, the overlooked and sickly “ugly” daughter—and the young, beautiful, and restless Adela.
I’ll leave the rest of the tragedy that ends up unfolding for prospective viewers to discover, but suffice it to say that the slow-burn plot is suspenseful and ultimately shattering.
Between tense dialogue scenes that push the story forward, you’ll find the real heart of this 90 minute piece in its 20 song score, which is so rich and musically complex it could rightly be called operatic. In poetic lyrics, the women express their stifled desires, lament their bitter disappointments, and contemplate how they will deal with their impossible situations.
Stunning, interlocking melodies help set an eerie, gothic mood—or illustrate how the women’s respective sorrows often fall in perfect parallel. Director Gabriel Garcia has wisely assembled a cast of incredibly skilled singers to rise to this vocal challenge, starting with a “chorus” of minor characters played by Brenna Arden, Whitney Baldwin, Lauren Cox, and Elle Grant.
They hold down the fort with scene-setting harmonies as the principal actresses consistently nail their showier solos. As a whole, the daughters (Cherry Gonzalez, Mimi Batista, Laura Powalisz, Brianna Small, and Sophia Cintron) are probably the best singers of the lot. Angela Cotto gets an emotional ballad to remember as long-suffering head maid Poncia, and Sonia-Cordero Small is a haunting presence as Bernarda’s senile mother Maria.
Musical director Amy Sullivan excels in another character role as three distinct male characters. Janine Pepin in the title role likely has the hardest job acting-wise, and gives a masterful performance as a complex character whose actions are both understandable and unforgivable.
Wild-haired and wild-eyed, Small is another performer who makes an outsized impact as the irrepressible Adela, her face betraying her palpable desperation. This shines through particularly well as she shares a sensual dance with Sullivan, its sexual implications unmistakable.
Besides that, choreography (also by Garcia) isn’t particularly complex, but is uniquely effective in its incorporation of taps and claps that add a sonic intensity. The small theatre is well-lit and well-utilized by Garcia’s economical design and staging choices, and wig and costume design by Sonia Cordero-Small is a lovely finishing touch.
With the exception of adornments like aprons for the servants, these costumes are nearly all black, something Bernarda mandates as a performative display of the household’s mourning.
When the rebellious Adela finally dares defy her mother in bright green, the visual contrast becomes all the more striking.
She and her cloistered sisters would certainly have something in common with some of the characters from For Colored Girls…, many of whose lives have also been limited by convention and shaped by fear.
“I used to live in the world…. And now I live in Harlem“ one says, describing how she has seen her universe shrink to a mere six blocks.
We never learn her name—each of the play’s seven actresses is identified in the playbill only by their dress color, the above being a quote from the “Lady in Blue.”
The women shift identities from sequence to sequence rather than playing a singular role throughout. Sometimes, they speak as distinct characters and sometimes become a Greek chorus of archetypal everywomen.
In one particularly chilling such sequence, the women reflect on the kinds of predators who hide their duplicitous intentions behind a gentlemanly facade.
“We see them at the coffeehouse…we could even have them over for dinner and get raped in our own houses.”
This is one of countless moments that rang hauntingly true to me, relatably reflecting a harsh reality of womanhood. Regardless of what color a woman is or which one she is wearing, she is liable to become a target of an entitled man at practically any time.
As the play’s title implies, though, its specific concern is with the experiences of women of color, who must fight through an additional layer of marginalization related to their race. Sometimes this identity is referenced directly, other times implicitly, but always present as a shading in the way the women speak and what they have experienced.
This melodic writing of playwright Ntozake Shange highlights the beauty of Black culture and language, as do musical interludes throughout the play incorporating thematically relevant songs made famous by Black artists. Every actress in the cast proves as powerful a singer as an actress, and every one of these interludes is an absolute joy—something needed to counterbalance other stories that range from difficult to harrowing.
Not that there aren’t lighter moments in the main text of the play as well—humorous tales of romantic conquests, and satisfying sections where the women confidently recognize their own beauty, power, and strength.
Still, there’s a reason that the pre-show announcement included several trigger warnings: abortion and domestic violence are touched along with sexual assault. Most of these stories are as timely now as they were when the play premiered in 1976, something the characters themselves point out during one of the audience address interludes. This was my first time seeing this play staged, but I first read it in a playwriting class nearly a decade ago—and some of the poems were so distinctive and powerful that I recognized them immediately on this first rehearing.
Now that I’ve seen them brought to life by this talented cast, I have even less hope of ever forgetting their imprint. Director Roberta Emerson has intricately crafted the performances of the play’s seven talented performers to be nuanced, dynamic, and irresistibly compelling, even during some lengthy solo monologues that easily could have otherwise dragged.
She and assistant director Bethany Hemmans are part of the show’s cast as well, something that seems to only have enhanced the feeling of sisterhood and solidarity that radiated from the ensemble. They’re joined by Nyeshia Naomi, Patrece Bloomfield, Edmarie Montes, Desiree Montes, and Ayòfémi Jeriah Demps, each of whom feel perfectly placed in their respective roles.
Emerson’s casting choices also allowed the cross-section of characters represented to include women of color who run the gamut in terms of age, background, and body type. As one actress highlights herself while in-character as herself during an introductory sequence, it also allows this production to make clear that the play’s empowering messages about womanhood should not be assumed to apply to cisgender women alone.
The other half of the play’s two part title—“ when the rainbow is enuf”—is viscerally represented in the colorful costume design of Maria Tew, lighting design of Derek Critzer, and expansive rainbow-themed set-dressing that envelops the entire theatre. A final visual reveal that ties into this motif is a thrilling finishing touch on this vibrant evening.
You have until Sunday September 21st to catch these colors for yourself at Theater West End- and only until this September 14th to catch Bernarda Alba at the Imagine Performing Arts Center.
For an even more adventurous day of theatre-going, you could even arrange the two into a double feature on September 13th (For Colored Girls has a matinee, and Bernarda Alba an evening.) If you do, expect chromatic whiplash—and to be twice wowed.
FULL CAST AND CREW CREDITS FOR BERNARDA ALBA:
FULL CAST AND CREW CREDITS FOR “FOR COLORED GIRLS WHO HAVE CONSIDERED SUICIDE/ WHEN THE RAINBOW IS ENUF”:
Director: Roberta Emerson*
Choreographer/Assistant director: Bethany Hemmans
Intimacy Director: Desiree Montes
Production Stage Manager: Stephanie Elliott
Stage Manager: Faith Merriman
Costumer: Maria Tew
Lighting Design: Derek Critzer
Marketing Associate: Leigh Green
Set Construction: Derek Critzer, Quinn Roberts, Hunter Rogers
Spotlight Operator: Autumn Mantel
Lady in Blue: Edmarie Montes
Lady in Brown: Ayòfémi Jeriah Demps
Lady in Purple: Desiree Montes
Lady in Red: Roberta Emerson
Lady in Yellow: Bethany Hemmans
Lady in Green: Patrece Bloomfield
Lady in Orange: Nyeshia Naomii
TICKET INFO AND REMAINING PERFORMANCE TIMES: