‘Black Cypress Bayou‘ is a riveting look at the lives of four black woman living in Lodi, Texas against the backdrop of Geffen Playhouse’s Audrey Skirball Kenis Theater, which has been transformed into a beautiful southern bayou.
Playwright Kristen Adele Calhoun wrote the script during the global COVID-19 pandemic because “she was having a dream of a woman carrying a laundry basket in the bayou and the women she encountered along the way”.
On a hot summer night, Vernita Manifold (Kimberly Scott) summons her two daughters, LadyBird Manifold (Brandee Evans) and RaeMeka Manifold-Baler (Angela Lewis) down to the bayou with a secret too big to keep.
The richest, meanest man in town “old man Rutherford” is dead, and the Manifold women know more than they’re saying. Entering the chat is security guard Taysha Hunter (Amber Chardae Robinson) who worked for Rutherford who helps connect the dots to his death and also reveals a deep connection with Vernita.
Vernita is distraught as she waits for LadyBird to reach RaeMeka, as she frets about what’s in her laundry basket. LadyBird is preoccupied with enforcing COVID mandates as she seeks to maintain a safe distance from her mother while trying to pry information out of her.
After LadyBird is forced to reckon with her inoperable cellphone (due to nonpayment of the bill) she is unable to call her sister and is refusing to get to close to her mother to retrieve her phone out of her pocket.
After much tussling with trying to get the information, Vernita finally reveals what’s under the bloody sheet and keep LadyBird from emitting whatever food is in her stomach at its sight. Before LadyBird can blurt out her astonishment her mother stops her.
“You know these 5G cell phones be listening to everything we say! Do not say nothing about nothing about NOTHING!” said Vernita.
This begins the trauma filled recounting of their ire for “old man Rutherford” and the pain he’s inflicted on those living in town particularly those who work in his factory.
“Them Rutherfords been evil since Lincoln was living… don’t get me started on that fire back in
‘05 where all them people died in that stairwell on account of them chaining up the fire exits just cause they didn’t want people taking breaks! Seventeen souls gone and Lone Star wouldn’t even pay for they funerals!” recounts Meka.
(Jeff Lorch)
LadyBird is then forced to recount how she had to make a gripping decision of whether to use the last of her money to pay either her cellphone bill or her wife’s medicine. Money was tight after Rutherford laid off the work because of the pandemic. And because of her dire conditions it led her to a chance encounter with Rutherford, in that stairwell, before his head landed on her mother’s backporch.
All the while Vernita is persistent that she needs RaeMeka because, as she says, LadyBird is too “by-the-book” – while and RaeMeka has a “criminal mind”.
RaeMeka attempts to implore her mother to call the police which she is adamant about NOT doing.
“Considering they do most of the killing you must want me laid up dead next to him?” Vernita asks. “What I look like calling the death squad to my own door? And on account of a dead white man? I know I raised you better than that, Lady. We don’t ever call the police. Not for nothing.”
We love deep and hard when fear ain’t in the way
Once LadyBird is able to reach RaeMeka she whispers her code word for trouble – “ASSATA” which they used “cause you [Vernita] sent us to school with rednecks who might be your friend one minute but once that liquor hit, ya never know.”
Vernita sent them to the “safe” white school as opposed to the black school up the street.
Calhoun has done an amazing job of displaying the real life issues facing her quartet that will resonate with the audience. COVID brought about a lot of time to reckon with our past as we were uncertain about our future.
Taysha represents a reckoning of Vernita’s past that she is forced to rehash with the support of her daughters. Together they hatch a plan to deal with Rutherford with the goal of living happily ever after. Maybe.
Director Tiffany Nichole Greene did an outstanding job of relaying the authenticity of Calhoun’s work as the ensemble kept the audience engaged throughout the 80 minute running time.
Scenic designer Lawrence E. Moten III delivered a powerful set that encapsulates the intricacies of the bayou from the eerie sounds, Spanish moss hanging from the rafters and the slow movement of the water that brings the entire production together.
‘Black Cypress Bayou’ is playing at the Audrey Skirball Kenis Theater at Geffen Playhouse, 10886 Le Conte Ave., L.A. 8 p.m. Wednesdays-Fridays, 3 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, 2 and 7 p.m. Sundays through March 17.
Tickets are priced between $39-$129 (subject to change). For more information (310) 208-2028 or www.geffenplayhouse.org
