Late at night, deep in the woods of southern Illinois, a ghost tells Gail she will die within the next 24 hours. So begins The Refuge Plays, an epic tale that follows one Black family over 70 years. Written by Nathan Alan Davis, this bold reimagining of an American “family play” is full of humor, heart and surprises. Patricia McGregor directs.
Nathan Alan Davis’s The Refuge Plays turns the American family play on its head. The three-part epic has familiar markers of the category, like parent-child sparring matches and dredged-up family secrets, but there are also mystical elements on stage. The Roundabout Theatre Company world premiere, produced in association with the New York Theatre Workshop, features ancestral spirits and sublime performances.
In The Refuge Plays, Nathan Alan Davis has put together a three-part drama full of engaging small gestures that fail to add up. The drama is Davis’s follow-up after arriving in New York in 2016 with Nat Turner in Jerusalem, and it’s admirably ambitious; this production directed by Patricia McGregor runs three hours and 29 minutes. That’s not nearly as long as some epics, but certainly longer than your average nonprofit subscription theater program (The Refuge Plays is a co-production from New York Theatre Workshop and the Roundabout), especially at a time when most are cutting back. It’s got an intriguing hook: The trilogy begins more or less in the present with a Black family in a house hidden in the woods of Southern Illinois and then steps back one generation with each installment. But as it telescopes into the past, the series falls short of coherence, wandering away from itself and losing the audience.
2023 | Off-Broadway |
Roundabout Theatre Company Off-Broadway Premiere Production Off-Broadway |
Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
---|---|---|---|
2024 | Drama League Awards | Distinguished Performance | Nicole Ari Parker |
2024 | The Lortels | Outstanding Lead Performer in a Play | Nicole Ari Parker |
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