Public Theater’s “Good Bones” Hauntingly Debates Gentrification and Revitalization – front mezz junkies, Theater News

The Off-Broadway Theatre Review: James Ijames’ Good Bones

By Ross

A haunting dynamic envelopes the space, one that is systematically unveiled on The Public Theater‘s Martinson stage. It frames the space in deeply connecting shadows and shards of light, giving way to the sound of wind and the city that float in through an open French door before a character, masked by gauze, closes it off from this finely crafted room. Maybe it is because of the time of year, late October, or all the other plays I’ve been seeing, but James Ijames’ Good Bones feels like a ghost story lurking in the shadows waiting to present itself. And in a way it is, but one of the many great things I came to realize in this intensely captivating new play is that a tale doesn’t always need to have actual ghosts to be a true ghost story.

A certain connection to history is required, and it needs to be unheard or not dutifully paid attention to for it all to work on a supernatural level, and in Good Bones, both are there, playing in the hallways of this complex collision of thoughts and ideals. It bounces in from above or blows in from outside, but the message is clear and determined to be breathed in. As written with determination by the brilliant Ijames (Fat Ham), Good Bones finds its way, unwrapping an idea composed of two very different outlooks, He lets them live and do battle in a space haunted by the dynamic complex history of the land that this townhouse sits upon. It giggles and laughs at the unwilling, while also framing the debate with boldness that unfolds dramatically when different constructs collide.

Directed with an expansive eye for conflict by Saheem Ali (Atlantic Theater’s Buena Vista Social Club), Good Bones gives us a number of deeply felt, connecting relationships centered around personal history, trauma, and the essence of community, with its surprising fulcrum being Aisha, captivatingly portrayed by Susan Kelechi Watson (Old Vic’s Eureka Day). She’s the vibrating core at the center of a contentious debate around neighborhood gentrification, not only because of the historic townhouse she and her husband; Travis, a smiling, wealthy, privileged restaurateur and chef, portrayed solidly by Mamoudou Athie (LCT’s The Mystery of Love and Sex), are in the midst of monochromatically renovating with the expert assistance from a local contractor, Earl, strongly portrayed by Khris Davis (Broadway’s Death of a Salesman), but because she has returned to the very same neighborhood she grew up in. Now, a fiercely determined consultant, she’s working diligently on a controversial stadium project that is slated to be built in this neighborhood, and she believes, fully and with a dynamic, almost traumatic passion, that this will revitalize the neighborhood, even as it levels all the projects and houses that hundreds call home.

Finely outfitted in costumes that present a newly crafted vessel of “bougie” confidence, Aisha sees it all from a very finely-tuned vantage point, one veiled and colored by pain, anger, and fear from her years growing up in those same projects. Raised by a single mother who died there, of cancer, poverty, and neglect, her focus is intense and monochromatic. Not black, nor white, but somewhere muted and in between. Yet, the challenge to her solid framing is basically coming from inside this very house, and like a horror movie set-up, it laughs at her as she tries to shut the door against all the history and community that lives outside those finely crafted French doors. Her view is also challenged, equal in passion and intelligence, by her handsome and determined contractor, Earl, who also grew up, yet remained, in the heat of this neighborhood. He sees the sports complex as something quite different from the way Aisha sees it. And has no problem speaking his mind to the equally determined homeowner.

“Did you just laugh?” she calls up to her husband, who is up on the second floor living a very different existence than the one down below. In a way, the question is really being asked to Earl, the house, and the neighborhood, as this play circles around Aisha with opposing views and controversial ideals, all held tightly in the finely tuned debate that sometimes spins in on itself a bit too tightly. The chemistry between Earl and Aisha is intense and electric, very different from her more problematic relationship with her husband, who she thinks is spoiled, too sensitive, and pampered from growing up black, wealthy, and West Coast privileged. Earl and her share a commonality scratched out in the dirt of this neighborhood.

Yet Earl has some romantic notions of the district, crafted from memories of playing ‘Ghost Hunters’ in this very house, the house of legendary Sister Bernice – the first Black woman on the city council. He used to play his sister, Carmen, played endearingly by Téa Guarino (Globe’s Antony and Cleopatra), long before this day, but in a time after the house was boarded up and left to rot. Like the neighborhood that stands around it now. Carmen, who makes a late appearance in this provocative play as a shielding device, one might say, also has some lines of internal connection to Aisha, linking the two in a synchronized dance of complexity and understanding. But more importantly, Aisha has some very different connections to the shared history of this land than Earl and his community, mostly embedded under her skin by the violence and oppressive memories that linger and laugh at her.

Though the costuming by Oana Botez (Playwrights Horizons’ The Thin Place) is alternatively beautiful yet sometimes distracting, the house quickly and hauntingly becomes the other grand star of this complex play, designed almost too expansively by Maruti Evans (Arena Stage’s Angels in America). With superb atmospheric lighting by Barbara Samuels (PR’s The Rape of…) and matched by the supernaturally solid sound design by Fan Zhang (CSC’s Snow in Midsummer), the clash is slowly unpacked, unveiled, and discovered over the course of this one hour and forty-five-minute play. Good Bones reminds us of the voices that live in our spaces and our minds, bouncing past-life balls down historic stairs with impish weighty delight. They are determined to play with us, while also reframing ideals and rules of the game one after the other. There is history in these supernaturally grey walls, and they are there to be explored if we are willing to embrace them. And even though Good Bones gets a bit mired down in the excess details of conception and flirtation that dynamically shifts into conflict, both dangerous and inevitable, the interrogation is determined and forever enlightening.

Embedded in these fiery walls, masked by grey tones, accent knobs, and culinary constructions, the contentious relationships play out with a fierce blunt determination that flashes with light and purpose. Displacement and destruction are being served up, with sides of goat and corporate greed, flavored with promises of gentrification and words of revitalization. Earl is there to give Aisha the history lesson she has decided to discard and bulldoze out of her head, as conflicting values and persistent ghost-giggles intrude on Aisha’s firm stance. They unconsciously keep her awake long into the night, just like the block party that doesn’t allow Travis the peace and quiet he needs and wants.

It’s a socioeconomic collision course, not a racial one, that pushes them all over the edge, raising the stakes in this reformation of stranger relationships. In the building and rezoning of the formula in interesting dynamic ways, Ijames has created a powerfully fascinating feast around history and trauma, relationships, and conflicting values, peppered with supernatural laughter and honor. Even if the whole thing is served up with a few too many side dishes flavored with too many spices to digest in one sitting, there are some solidly good bones in the structure of the House of Good Bones, that maybe, possibly, needs a more defined final course to dutifully elevate this serving into a solidly good meal.