Displaying items by tag: Shenise Brown

America’s greatest sin is its obsession with race and skin color. From the first toll of the Liberty Bell, the nation has measured who is free and who is owned by the color of their skin. In Marcus Gardley’s The House That Will Not Stand, now given a rich and haunting revival by Invictus Theatre Company, that obsession becomes both a weapon and a wound. Gardley resurrects the forgotten world of Creole New Orleans—where wealth, whiteness, and womanhood are tangled together in knots—and transforms it into something exquisite, unsettling, and deeply human.

This production marks Invictus’s first offering since their remarkable Angels in America, and it stands as an equally compelling successor. Guided by the skillful direction of Aaron Reese Boseman, The House That Will Not Stand unfolds as both a gothic ghost story and a poignant parable about the boundaries of freedom in 1813 New Orleans—a city poised between the fading opulence of French colonialism and the strict racial divisions of the emerging American regime.

Britt Edwards commands the stage as Beartrice Albans, a proud free woman of color who has built her wealth and status through the plaçage system, a quasi-legal arrangement allowing Creole women to become the common-law wives of white men. With her lover, Lazare (played by the excellent Ron Quade), freshly dead and his body still on display in the parlor, Beartrice fights to protect her three daughters and her legacy as her world begins to crumble.

Those daughters—each beautifully rendered—embody the next generation’s struggle for identity. Kaylah Marie Crosby’s Agnès glows with youthful yearning, dreaming of love as a path to freedom. Sierra Coachman’s Maude Lynn retreats into rigid piety, while Aysia Slade’s Odette exudes charm and sharp wit, a realist surviving through grace and guile. Together, they capture Gardley’s kaleidoscope of womanhood—three shades of resistance against their mother’s rigid control.

Jimiece Gilbert’s Marie Josephine, the proverbial “crazy aunt in the attic,” turns her confinement into revelation. Her mad visions bridge the world of the living and the dead, anchoring Boseman’s ghostly approach to the story. Her voice, equal parts anguish and prophecy, reminds us that this is not just family melodrama—it’s historical haunting. Sandra Adjoumani brings a sly, spectral energy as La Veuve, the perpetual widow.

Meanwhile, Shenise Brown’s Makeda, the enslaved servant, gives the play its spiritual gravity. Her connection to African ancestry and unseen forces makes her both witness and conscience. Brown’s performance glows quietly, her stillness and humor cutting through Beartrice’s bluster with earthy wisdom.

Boseman’s direction leans into Gardley’s gothic sensibility. He treats the house as a living ghost, filled with whispers, candlelight, and secrets too heavy to contain. Scenic designer Kevin Rolfs has crafted a stunning 1800s New Orleans mansion divided into multiple playing areas: the elegant sitting room, the cool upstairs bedroom, the claustrophobic attic of Marie Josephine, and even the alcove where Lazare’s body lies in state. Levi Wilkins’s lighting balances warmth and eeriness, evoking both haunted house and holy shrine, while Terri Devine’s costumes—from black brocade mourning dresses to shimmering African prints and head wraps—are, as the name suggests, simply divine.

Still, not every element lands perfectly. While Edwards delivers Beartrice’s fiery pride with conviction, she occasionally overplays the register—spending much of the evening at full volume. Some lines blur in the shouting, and Gardley’s intricate text, already rich with historical and cultural nuance, sometimes gets lost. A few accents also stray, making the language harder to follow.

Gardley’s play doesn’t just dramatize America’s obsession with race—it excavates it. The story unfolds in the very region where mixed-race identities were codified into law, a world not far removed from the history of Pope Leo XIII’s own Creole ancestry. Gardley asks what happens when power, beauty, and belonging are measured by the shade of one’s skin—and Invictus answers with a production that is both eerie and elegant, steeped in laughter and lament.

In The House That Will Not Stand, ghosts are not just memories; they are the architecture of a nation still learning how to live with its past.

Highly Recommended
When: Through December 14
Where:  Invictus Theatre @ Windy City Playhouse, 3014 W Irving Park Rd, Chicago
Tickets: $25 - $38
Info: Invictustheatreco.com