Imagine you’re a Black playwright tasked with using just ten minutes of running time to make sense of contemporary Black American humanity. In its 17th season, the Fire This Time Festival invites emerging playwrights of African descent to do just that, make meaning of the moment in ten-minute increments. This year, the festival begins a residency at The Apollo Stages at the Victoria (down the street from theApollo Theater). Directed by Ken-Matt Martin, this year’s collection features six vignettes brought to life by an ensemble of five actors. It runs Jan. 23-31.
Kelley Girod, the Festival’s founder and executive producer, told me that the idea of ten-minute plays was born out of a frustration “with major theaters that would keep one slot available for a playwright of color. … Doing ten-minute plays allows us to feature seven to eight brand new playwright voices that the industry hasn’t heard of yet. You get to travel to so many different worlds over the course of 90 minutes.”
When I attended this past Saturday, the frigid temperatures were conspiring against Girod’s cast and crew. The theater was cold, the lighting board failed and began working just in time for the start of the show, and one of the plays had to restart after a backstage costume malfunction.
But the show went on, pretty successfully I might add. Rather than dimming the enthusiasm, the production glitches inspired the audience and served as a reminder to celebrate the resilience of Black art and theater in the midst of hostile conditions and scarcity.
The festival’s six plays leaned into this ethos with a lively range of genres and room tones. Two of the plays are comedies, but also deliver the most explicit political statements of the evening. Using flashes of absurdity, “Black to the Save the Day,” written by Preston Crowder, and “Goose,” by DeLane McDuffie, each question who is down for the cause of Black liberation, who’s pretending, and who is shucking and jiving. “Black to the Save the Day” is a raucous romp that employs broad satirization and superhero tropes to make bold swipes at gentrification, white supremacy, and the process of selling out. Inventively costumed and energetically delivered, “Black to Save the Day” moved with the breathlessness of an unhinged “SNL” skit and the silliness of a Mad Magazine feature.
In comparison, “Goose” is more subtle and straightforward in its metaphorical language. In the spirit of Spike Lee’s “Get on the Bus,” a group of Black activists trade ideological arguments and philosophies on their way to a protest action. Well-paced and imaginatively written, “Goose” pokes fun at Black social change narratives — which revolutionary road are we on anyway? — while delivering a deliciously satisfying easter egg of an ending.
The remaining productions are more sober and intimate. “Everything But-,” written by Teniia Micazia Brown, and “Clumsy,” by Mo Holmes, explore one-on-one clashes between peers. “Everything But-” is the more intricate and emotionally ambitious. Situated in the waning moments of a young couple’s argument, at issue is Ezra’s infidelity and Thea’s attempts to make sense of his betrayal in real time. The dialogue guides us through Ezra’s smoothly delivered, but profoundly flawed attempts to rationalize his cheating ways while showcasing the emotional abstractions that Thea uses to coolly deconstruct and dismantle them. At Saturday’s performance, the women in the audience served as Thea’s amen corner.
Mo Holmes’ “Clumsy,” which tells the story of a woman who offers to cook grits for a drunk driver who plows into her kitchen with his car, never manages to successfully rise above its random premise to provide a fully intelligible viewing experience.
The remaining plays in the festival lineup are micro family dramas that place us at pivotal end-of-life junctures. “White Diamond,” written by Donathan Walters, finds a mother, Andrea, and her son, Hakeem, sifting through Andrea’s late mother’s belongings in preparation for her funeral. Looking for the deceased’s brooch provides the opportunity for Hakeem to confront Andrea about accepting his boyfriend and to make a stunning revelation about her identity. In portraying Andrea, Nikiya Mathis gives perhaps the most fully lived-in performance of the evening.
The emotional stakes in “DNR,” written by Naomi Lorrain and excerpted from a conventional-length play, are recognizable to anyone who has navigated the financial and relational challenges of caretaking a terminally ill loved one. In “DNR,” god-fearing, duck-hunting Solomon is keeping a vigil over his mother, who is on life support. His estranged cousin, Nikki, has returned to their hometown to share her feelings about her aunt’s condition and to make a heart-wrenching proposal to Solomon. The dialogue moves effectively and captures the universal intricacies of family politics.
The focus of the Fire This Time Festival is on the scripts and performances. To note that the set design and props are minimal to non-existent would be to miss the point. Ultimately, The Fire This Time Festival is a showcase for Black voices and Black theater demanding to be heard. For more info, visit firethistimefestival.com.