Lileana Blain-Cruz will direct The Blood Quilt by Katori Hall. Gathering at their childhood island home off the coast of Georgia, four disconnected sisters meet to create a family quilt to honor their recently deceased mother. When their reunion turns into a reading of their mother’s will, everyone must grapple with a troubling inheritance. Stitched with history, ritual, laughter and tears, will their “blood quilt” bind the family together or tear them apart forever? The Blood Quilt had its premiere at Arena Stage in Washington, DC.
“The Blood Quilt,” like another show now playing Off Broadway, Dominique Morisseau’s “Bad Kreyòl,” similarly buckles under the weight of an attempt to capture the totality of a cultural experience. Gullah Geechee sea island Blackness, Caribbean-American Blackness — these are experiences that deserve representation, but not necessarily in one fell swoop. And yet in an art form that already lacks for marginalized stories, theater is also a space where Blackness has historically been — and to some extent still is — flattened into a singular African-American experience. So is there space for more? Perhaps a series of Kwemera plays that are given adequate space to sprawl out. Or a more focused, finely drawn sketch of Kwemera life that, like Clementine’s stitches, are “so tight even wind can’t whisper its way through.” Either way, I welcome more quilts to the collection.
Ms. Hall’s focus in “Quilt” is on four sisters who are reunited after their mother’s death. Clementine, who’s apparently single, is the eldest, and was the closest to their mom. Gio, a police officer, has the biggest mouth; embroiled in what’s clearly a nasty divorce, she self-medicates with marijuana, as Clementine alternately disapproves and shares her supply.
2024 | Off-Broadway |
LCT Off-Broadway Premiere Off-Broadway |
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