“Go back to where you started, or as far back as you can, examine all of it, travel your road again and tell the truth about it. Sing or shout or testify or keep it to yourself: but know whence you came.”—James Baldwin, The Price of the Ticket
But unlike the sexually arid world of Letts’s troubled Weston clan, Colston’s play draws the same connections between spiritual and sexual freedom that Baldwin embodied in his work. The performances are virtuosic across the board, from Reed-Foster’s take-no-prisoners demands for respect to Anderson’s terrifying rage as a man whose hard-as-nails demeanor can only partially hide that he is wounded to the soul. The tragedy is that he cannot find a way out of the darkness without damaging those around him. The revelation is that his children find the courage to sing, shout, and testify as they seek their own light. v
