Review Roundup: GOOD BONES Opens At The Public Theater

The Public Theater is presenting GOOD BONES by James Ijames and directed by Saheem Ali. Read the reviews!

Previews started on September 19 and the show has now been extended through October 27.

Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright James Ijames explores gentrification and the growing price of the American dream in his sharp, funny new play, GOOD BONES. A work opportunity to revitalize the blighted neighborhood she grew up in has led Aisha and her chef husband Travis to buy and renovate a charming old house. But as everyone knows, renovation is expensive and stressful—both for buildings and the communities that surround them. Aisha’s young contractor Earl grew up in the area too, but his memories are of more than just dangerous streets and hollowed-out homes. When their purely professional relationship gives way to heated debate about who gets to stay and who must go, Aisha is forced to reckon with the choices she’s made to get ahead and the painful, joyful, complicated ghosts that haunt her dreams… and her dream house. The Public’s Associate Artistic Director Saheem Ali directs this New York premiere play about community, change, and the soul of our cities.  

The cast of GOOD BONES includes Aaron J. Anderson (u/s Earl/Travis), Mamoudou Athie (Travis), Khris Davis (Earl), Téa Guarino (Carmen), Sabrina K. Victor (u/s Aisha/Carmen), and Susan Kelechi Watson (Aisha).

The production includes scenic design by Maruti Evans; costume design by Oana Botez; lighting design by Barbara Samuels; sound design by Fan Zhang; hair, makeup, and wig design by Krystal Balleza; and prop management by Claire M. Kavanah. Darrell Grand Moultrie does the production’s drill choreography and Jack Phillips Moore serves as the dramaturg. Norman Anthony Small is the production stage manager and Giselle Andrea Raphaela is the stage manager.

Raven Snook, Time Out New York: Good Bones is very different in tone from Ijames's Pulitzer Prize-winning Fat Ham, but the two plays have several themes in common, including generational trauma, conflicting values and ever-present ghosts; exploring these questions from a socioeconomic perspective, not a racial one, shifts the stakes in interesting ways. (Even Earl is complicit in the changes to his community.) Director Saheem Ali, incisive as always, does what he can to animate Ijames’s contemplations of class, code-switching and the corrosive effects of gentrification, and the result is mostly engaging if not always convincing. There may be a great play inside Good Bones, but it needs a bit more fleshing out.

Allison Considine, New York Theatre Guide: For spouses Aisha and Travis, a charming historic home in Aisha’s hometown offers the ideal renovation opportunity when the couple relocate for her new job. The home has good bones — a solid foundation, sound framing, and long-term durability. Likewise, James Ijames’s Good Bones, directed by Saheem Ali, has the framework of a great new play, with nuanced characters and a charged conflict.

Sara Holdren, Vulture: Generosity is also a key ingredient in the mortar that holds together Good Bones, the new play from James Ijames now debuting at the Public after a run last year at Washington, D.C.’s Studio Theatre. Like Hwang, Ijames is concerned with questions not only of race and bias but of how Americans are perhaps more shaped by the idea of Americanness than shapers of it. Good intentions, hero complexes, defensive individuality, susceptibility to certain ideas of progress — on these fronts, DHH and Aisha, Ijames’s protagonist, might have much to discuss. It’s prickly territory, but, in their different ways, Hwang and Ijames both navigate it with humor and humanity. Fundamentally, and despite plenty of reasons to throw in the towel, they like people.

Tim Teeman, The Daily Beast: The play doesn’t come down on one side of the gentrification debate or another, but neither does it both-sides the issue. It remains rooted in character, and its conflicts are played out in good faith; its piercing ending is, in miniature, a nudge for us all to reject fear and open our doors and minds, and, most importantly, to fully live in the communities where we live.

Melissa Rose Bernardo, New York Stage Review: Saheem Ali directs a one-acter that only scratches the surface of the gentrification debate

Jonathan Mandell, New York Theater: “Good Bones,” by James Ljames, the Pulitzer-winning author of “Fat Ham,” is essentially a debate about gentrification, with sharply different views expressed by the characters, and also, perhaps unintentionally, by the set – which winds up the most persuasive of the arguments, and is frankly the freshest aspect of the production.

Juan A. Ramirez, Theatrely: But with across-the-board stellar performances; a simple set (by Maruti Evans) that slowly unveils the house-in-progress; lighting (by Barbara Samuels) and sound (by Fan Zhang) that’s naturalistic, until it’s not – as Aisha’s gnawing conscience begins to take shape; and an intelligent script, it’s only a minor stumble.

Average Rating: 70.0%