Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks, the author of last season’s The Harder They Come, returns to her artistic home with an edgy dramedy that celebrates the craft of theater while taking a hard look at history.
The off-off-off-Broadway theater troupe Good Company is putting on a play about Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson. Writer Luce is cast as Sally; her romantic partner, and the play’s director, Mike, is cast as Tom—really, people, what could possibly go wrong?
Despite this clever self-reflexive streak – who doesn’t love a play within a play? – Parks may have bitten off a little more than we can chew. There are bursts of her usual brilliance: Sally & Tom's beautiful language, its grasp on the contradictions of history and emotion, its exploration of the often inadequate platforms Black people are given (if at all) to reckon with the past and hope for the future. But the meta-theatrical play stuffs in too many numerous character threads as Sally & Tom toggles between onstage and backstage at Good Company, where the character’s insights and anxieties come out.
The eight members of the cast give their most absorbing performances as the 18th century characters. Rodrigo Muñoz’s authentic-looking costumes – surely better than Good Company could afford – help make the scenes at Monticello feel you-are-there real, not a rehearsal. The performers’ many interactions as the present-day members of the troupe (too minor to be considered full-fledged subplots) are less interesting as a whole.
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