Zambia (Mirarai) supports her Aunt Gio (Adrienne C. Moore) in The Blood Quilt by Katori Hall, which explores difficult family relationships.
In The Blood Quilt by Katori Hall, four half-sisters gather a few weeks after their mother’s funeral for an annual rite of stitching a quilt. As they congregate in their childhood home, the quartet of archetypal characters rehash old conflicts with their different personalities and views of tradition.
Clementine (Crystal Dickinson) and Amber (Lauren E. Banks) are sisters figuring out their mother’s legacy. Photographs by Julieta Cervantes.
Clementine Jernigan (Crystal Dickinson), the eldest, has been a good daughter who never left the family home on Kwemara Island, off the coast of Georgia, and tended to their mother during her long illness. Gio (Adrienne C. Moore) who arrives by ferry—she lives on the mainland—is eternally restless. A policewoman by profession, she is a grim presence and drinks incessantly. Next to arrive is Cassan (Susan Kelechi Watson), with her teenage daughter Zambia (Mirarai), in tow. Cassan is a nurse who could have been a doctor and follows her military husband from base to base. Last to arrive is Amber (Lauren E. Banks), the youngest, an entertainment lawyer who lives in California. She is greeted begudgingly because she didn’t attend their mother’s funeral.
From the moment the sisters come together, the jocular barbs they toss at one another have an undercurrent of anger, which is further heightened after the reading of their mother’s will. She has left the house to Clementine. Cassan has been bequeathed a seemingly worthless jewelry box (that has shocking revelations), and the quilts have been left to Amber. Poor Gio has been left absolutely nothing, which sends her into a King Lear–like rage—howling in the storm.
“Hall’s fast-paced writing is delivered nimbly by the immensely talented cast. ”
They face a dilemma, however: their mother stopped paying property taxes seven years earlier and the amount in arrears is a large sum. Amber, the most successful, has helped the family a lot but she doesn’t have this kind of money. The only solution, she says, is to sell the quilts to a museum. Gio sourly says, “Well, you the Jesus,” to which Amber retorts:
Exactly, I am the fucking Jesus. … I sacrifice myself, my money, my time, as usual to help y’all trifling ass. I don’t know why you don’t get onboard with this, Gio. Hell at the end of the day, me and you both will have nothing.
Zambia sensibly suggests, “If you gone get pimped, make sure the gross you getting is worth the price you got to pay for the pimping. These scraps could be on the walls like a Monet; hell, like the Mona Lisa.”
Hall’s fast-paced writing is delivered nimbly by the immensely talented cast. Lileana Blain-Cruz’s direction keeps the action moving but Hall covers many topics—from HIV to folk traditions—whose impact is sometimes lost in the heightened delivery. While the threads of the play unravel at times, the magnificent set, sound, and video help hold it together.
Gio (Moore), Clementine (Dickinson) and Cassan (Susan Kelechi Watson) are half sisters in a fraught moment.
Adam Rigg’s set takes advantage of the Newhouse’s semi-round theatre to create a multidimensional interior that easily transforms from an interior to exterior space. On the first floor is a living room/kitchen and on the second floor is their mother’s bedroom where secrets and spirits seem to hide. Many small details, including a retro clock stuck on the same time– Clementine explains that when a person dies, time stands still—and the sumptuous quilts that hang from every surface, create the feel of a real lived-in home. Cross-hatching on the hardwood floor becomes, through Jiyoung Chang’s lighting, a rustic living room floor or a dock. A little stream of water at the lip of the stage serves to deepen the feeling of island life as well as the impending storm as the water laps ferociously at the edge. The ethereal soundscape (Palmer Hefferan) and immersive videos (Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew) deepen the story-telling.
Catharsis isn’t a magical process, and trauma and its twin, loneliness, run deep but things end on a hopeful note. Now that the trials and tribulations of the past have been fully aired, and each goes off to reckon with them, it’s possible that the bridge between them will be more easily built when they meet again; that the anger and the barbs will soften and give way to what they truly need and want from one another: love.
The Blood Quilt runs through Dec. 29 at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theatre (150 West 65th St.). Evening performances are at 7 p.m. Tuesday and at 8 p.m. Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday. Matinees are at 2 p.m. on Wednesday and Saturday, and at 3 p.m. on Sunday. Tickets are $109 and may be purchased online at lct.org.
Playwright: Katori Hall
Director: Lileana Blain-Cruz
Scenic Design: Adam Rigg
Lighting Design: Jiyoun Chang
Costume Design: Montana Levi
Sound Design & Music: Palmer Hefferan
Projection Design: Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew
