Past Reviews

Regional Reviews: Raleigh/Durham

Leaving Eden
PlayMakers Repertory Company
Review by Garrett Southerland


The Cast of Leaving Eden
Photo by HuthPhoto
"There's no place like home"—or so Dorothy from Kansas would like us to think. The concept of home can mean many things, though. The themes of staking claim to one's home, being forced into one, and searching for another are at the heart of Mike Wiley's new play, Leaving Eden, in a world premiere production on the Paul Green Theatre stage by PlayMakers Repertory through April 22. Mr. Wiley, with music and lyrics by Laurelyn Dossett, tackles the history of racial tensions that continues to impact a small North Carolina community into the present day, creating a patchwork quilt of American racial divides.

We first meet Selah, a ghostly figure (portrayed here with much conviction by the talented Tangela Large) with connections to several of the characters whose lives she narrates. We are transported back and forth from 1933 to 2016 in the fictional small town of Marah, North Carolina. In the 1930s the plot focuses on the tensions between the white and black communities of the post-Civil War south. In 2016 the tensions switch to those between the whites and the Hispanic immigrant community. Spanning the years is an aging matriarch, Ms. Maggie (a heartbreaking Rebecca Guy), who struggles with her memory to reclaim a tragic secret she has kept hidden so well she has almost hidden it from herself, about her family and this town where she has lived in so many years. All the while, we see the lives in both time periods evolve, culminating in a final moment of clarity.

Mr. Wiley has developed a very interesting concept, weaving multiple stories together into one. One might argue that it is almost too interesting and complex for an audience to follow in a meaningful way. It was wise, whether it in his crafting of the play or through the direction of the brilliant Vivienne Benesch, that most of the actors play multiple roles, reinforcing the parallels between Marah in 1933 and 2016. But not enough time is spent to flesh out any of them, and they are rather predictable in their actions. It is possible to forecast most of the plotlines before they happen.

In its complexity and form, and even in the cinematic direction of Ms. Benesch, is the suggestion that this play with music might have been better envisioned as a full-blown musical. Laurelyn Dossett has made a name for herself regionally and beyond with songs that beautifully evoke North Carolina heritage. Here she supplies a handful of wonderful songs ranging from classic folk and bluegrass to rhythmic rap made familiar to Broadway audiences by Lin-Manuel Miranda. Her work might have been leveraged more fully to provide the compressed character and plot development used so effectively in shows like Les Misérables and more recently, Come From Away.

Vivienne Benesch's direction does an excellent job of streamlining a great many sudden leaps in time and place, and she has also assembled another top-notch team of collaborators. Scenic design by Jan Chambers is astonishing in its craft: a curved, eroding road underneath a rustic public service billboard cuts through a hodgepodge of knickknacks and bric-a-brac representative of the sentimental attachments of home as well as the remnants left of our ancestors that we in present day have to clean up after and contend with. Multiple platforms divide up the rest of the space for various settings and also symbolize the way a single space fragments into many smaller ones. ML Geiger's lighting design contributes greatly to time and mood; the billboard that looms over the set shifts back and forth from a vintage message describing Marah as the "Pearl of the Piedmont" to a modern political banner about an ordinance to limit immigrant rights, underscoring where and when we are.

It is difficult to single out anyone in this cohesive cast, many of whom receive equal time and attention from the material. Tangela Large (Selah) and Rebecca Guy (Ms. Maggie) give the most memorable performances, but two supporting actors impressed me the most: Trevor Johnson (making his PlayMakers debut) as Reverend Jackson/Benn Mason/N'thaniel and Alex Givens as Andre/Seth are real and sincere, finding truth in speeches that don't always feel organic. Being a native North Carolinian, I did notice disparities and inconsistencies in accent and dialect among those characters.

The Bible tells of Adam and Eve being banished by God from their home in the Garden of Eden for the sins they committed. Being cursed, their ancestors then wandered through the wilderness, searching for a new place to call their own, never finding true belonging. That is the case here, too, in this rural town, where the sins of its ancestors are visited on their descendants. Truth, like home, may not always come easy, but it always has value, when it is found.

Leaving Eden, through April 22, 2018, by PlayMakers at the Paul Green Theatre at the Joan H. Gillings Center for Dramatic Art, 150 Country Club Road, Chapel Hill NC. Tickets can be purchased online at www.playmakersrep.org or by phone at 919-962-7529.

Playwright: Mike Wiley
Music and Lyrics/ Music Director: Laurelyn Dossett
Director: Vivienne Benesch
Scenic Design: Jan Chambers
Lighting Design: ML Geiger
Costume Designer: McKay Coble
Sound Design: Adam Bintz
Choreographer: Tracy Bersley

Cast:
Earl/Thomas: David Adamson
Javier/Man: Carlos Alcala
Roy/Jacob: Jeffrey Blair Cornell
Ezekiel/Lynn: Geoffrey Culbertson
Taj: Rishan Dhamija
Gabriel/Doc Eddie Langford: Ray Dooley
Angela: Peyton Furtado
David/Adam: Samuel Ray Gates
Andre/Seth: Alex Givens
Ms. Maggie: Rebecca Guy
Cheryl/Eve: Kathryn Hunter-Williams
Reverend Jackson/Ben Mason/N'thaniel: Trevor Johnson
Jillian/Young Maggie: Sarah Elizabeth Keyes
Selah: Tangela Large
Maria: Sarita Ocón
Tuan/Moses: Tristan Parks
Lucas/Coyote/Officer Phil: Dan Toot
Miguel: Jonathan Varillas