Chicken & Biscuits
A funeral is a fine setting for a play: a static location where a great deal can happen, given the occasion of gathered family and high emotion. Maybe people can make nice at Thanksgiving, but funereal grief makes things messy in the best of circumstances, and since when is getting everyone under one roof the best of circumstances? People are likely to say things — at least, if they’re not the sort who take all their emotions and bury them deeper than any grave ever dug. And the members of the Mabry and Jenkins families, gathered to mourn fallen patriarch (and pastor) Bernard Jenkins, are not that sort. Really, it’s only gay grandson Kenny who has obvious trouble speaking his mind — or rather, his heart, since he’s brought his (white and Jewish) boy Logan along to a Black Christian funeral, in hopes of finally gaining some acceptance. (It helps that grandpa was affirming, whatever his religious convictions and/or pastoral duties.)
Logan’s outsider status makes for a good running joke in which even his allies mangle his name, but there’s a steady stream of humor running throughout, affectionate sniping often serving to cover genuine rancor. Matriarch Baneatta really does disapprove of her younger sister, but it’s hard not to laugh when she complains about Bev’s titties bulging out of her dress. It’s a good thing, because it turns out that Logan and Kenny aren’t the only folks with secret sadness: everyone gets a moment here, though some are more momentous than others. (The sisters’ sincere reckoning could have closed the show, so deeply did it sound the play’s theme of love that endures all things.)
The drama takes some time to get going, in part because Baneatta does not come across as the force of nature one might expect; rather, Kimberly King plays her as a bit defeated, a bit embittered — at first, anyway. But both she and the show gather force as they go, which makes for a satisfying shout at the climax. Hallelujah, indeed.