The Jenkins family is coming together to celebrate the life of their father—hopefully without killing each other! Eldest daughter, Baneatta, wants everything to be perfect for her father’s funeral. “Favorite” daughter, Beverly, would rather honor her daddy dressed to show the entire congregation what she’s been “blessed with.” Teenage granddaughter, La’trice, can’t mind her own business if it was on a leash. Not far behind comes grandson Kenny and his very Jewish boyfriend Logan who is maybe, sort of, okay definitely afraid of Baneatta. But Baneatta’s hopes unravel when a family secret shows up at the funeral…
Representation matters. I see many great and necessary new works about the problem of Blackness in a racist society - or rather, the problem of whiteness. They are filled with anguish and unfunny funerals. What I rarely get to see are works about Black American life that are defiantly not problem plays. Their sunniness is just as necessary, however garish the aquamarine and pimped-out the corpse.
Lifting every last detail from Tyler Perry's recipe book, this family comedy is brimming with stock characters, creaky jokes, tired references and easy, feel-good sermonizing. Bickering relatives speechifying with exposition and put-downs? Family secrets guessable even by the most distant outsider? Characters that can be summed up in one-word signifiers? Check, check and check.
2020 | Off-Broadway |
Original Off-Broadway Production Off-Broadway |
2021 | Broadway |
A New Comedy by Douglas Lyons Broadway |
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