In yet another demonstration of Pittsburgh’s incredible pool of creative talent, Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre company and the August Wilson House have co-produced an incendiary world premiere.
Pittsburgh playwright a.k. payne’s “BURNBABYBURN! the american dream” is a lyrical and often visceral journey through generations of Black women in Pittsburgh. It runs through Sept. 13 outside at the August Wilson House in the Hill District, and the setting is certainly no accident.
Director Karla C. Payne and scenic director Mark Clayton Southers created a potent feeling of intimacy by staging the play “in the round” with the audience placed all around a central stage, and as the sky darkened on Sunday night, the shifting colors of stage lights (from lighting designer Latrice Lovett) were an almost ethereal indicator of the scene’s place in time.
The play is a journey through the labyrinthine mind and family tree of Sky II (Kat Bruce), a young Black woman in the modern age who is searching through her family’s photo albums, hoping to find missing pieces of her own identity in the unfamiliar images. She reaches back through the decades to speak to her grandmother and namesake, Sky (Hope Anthony), whose own story is full of joy, triumph, tragedy and fire.
Anthony’s Sky is the heart and soul of the play, radiating decades of awe, rage, rapture and brokenness in the course of two hours. Her dreams and desires are influenced by her mother Myrna (Aisha Jordan Gunter), who left Pittsburgh to become a singer in New York City before returning to have a family; her husband, Will (a magnetic Anthony Grace), whose own dreams consume hers; her son, Joyner (DeVaughn Robinson), who keeps some parts of her memory from her granddaughter; and “friend” — and love of her life — Char (Destiny Nwafor). Anthony and Nwafor’s chemistry feels beautifully organic in their scenes together.
“BURNBABYBURN!” is a story with a sort of angry ambivalence toward Pittsburgh, a city that saw an influx of Black citizens during the Great Migration but can also be a difficult home for that community, especially Black women. Still, the play examines the importance of lineage and place — of not running or hiding from the past. The title also reveals one of the play’s themes: the literal and metaphorical burning of America. From the smoky glow of Pittsburgh during its industrial height (Sky is so named because the day of her birth was the first time Myrna saw a clear sky) to the riots after Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination to the wildfires in California, where Sky and Will move to bask in the sun, flames are present throughout the play, denoted through red stage lights that are often then cooled by sky-blue hues.
Each era is denoted by a lit set of photos with a year labeled on it that’s lit individually and placed around the outside of the audience, and in a particularly poignant moment, the whole ring of photos is lit at the play’s end. The cycle of our families’ generational traumas, especially those inflicted by racism, homophobia and abuse, must be remembered to be broken.
Sound and music were also vital to this show (and sound designer Wayne Gaines integrated both in smoothly). From Ma Rainey to Kendrick Lamar, generations’ worth of popular songs set the atmosphere. And a play that moves through time requires a keen sense of period-appropriate costuming, courtesy of Cheryl El Walker.
Playwright payne provided a script that often bordered on poetry, and director Payne guided the cast to pull the music out of the words and infuse them with emotional honesty and clarity.
This new work is challenging, unique and beautiful, painting a portrait of an often-ignored local population with stunning depth. It’s only a matter of time until a.k. payne is setting the world on fire with their work.
“BURNBABYBURN! the american dream,” a co-production between Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company and the August Wilson House, will be performed outside at the August Wilson House in the Hill District until Sept. 13. To learn more and get tickets, visit pghplaywrights.org.