Ain’t No Mo’

Play (2019)
by Jordan E. Cooper
Directed by Dawn M. Simmons
Speakeasy Stage Company
Boston Center for the Arts
South End, Boston
January 10 – February 8, 2025

With Grant Evan (Peaches), Dru Sky Berrian (Passenger 1), De’Lon Grant (Passenger 2), Kiera Prusmack (Passenger 3), Schanaya Barrows (Passenger 4), MConnia Chesser (Passenger 5)

An intertwined series of wild, funny and unsettling sketches about identity, race and blackness, fused by an underlying dramatic motive.

This series of wild and funny sketches begins with a takeoff on a preacher (De’Lon Grant) speaking at a funeral and goes on from there, unpredictably, hilariously and, at times, dramatically. That preacher, using the N word liberally and pointedly to emphasize the intimacy of the group to which it is addressed, a presumed congregation of black people, reveals that the dearly departed is someone named Brother Right To Complain who died on November 4, 2008, the day that Barack Obama was elected president of the United States.

A hopping eulogy follows in which the preacher says goodbye to all the horrible things that blacks have suffered and declares, with obvious irony, that there Ain’t No Mo’ going to be raids on blacks by the police, FEMA, no need to call anyone Massah, no need for riots, no image of shuffling like Stepin Fetchit, no Amos ‘n Andy, no stop and frisk, no Emmett Till, no more strife. One would only hope. And then there is a video of police attacking one of the many blacks attacked unjustly by police since that seemingly bountiful day of Obama’s election to upend the vanity of the hopes just expressed.

The set depicts a gate an an airline terminal and this prepares the setting for many of the skits which follow. A transgender flight agent, Peaches (Grant Evan) is speaking with a friend and encouraging her to get to the airport in order to get on a special flight. We soon learn that this flight – indeed special – will take all black people from America who are interested in going to Africa for good. No looking back to America is allowed, and much like Lot’s wife looking back on Sodom and Gomorrah, they are forbidden with eternal return to America and a concurrent loss of black identity. This theme of the flight to Africa and what it entails crops up throughout the play and represents the thread that holds the various pieces together.

Dru Sky Berrian, MaConnia Chesser, Kiera Prusmack, Schanaya Barrows in 'Ain't No Mo'' — Dru Sky Berrian
MaConnia Chesser
Kiera Prusmack
Schanaya Barrows
in “Ain’t No Mo'”
Photo: Nile Scott Studios
Courtesy of Speakeasy Stage Company

A man and a woman are in an abortion clinic, waiting on an endless line for service. The abominable wait is the outstanding feature of the scene until it becomes clear what the woman’s motivation for the abortion is. (Detailed below in the spoilers section.)

An intermediate skit, quite long but very entertaining and persuasive, features a reality show entitled The Real Baby – Mamas of the South Side in which the members of the cast become sassy, street-smart, fast-talking women (Dru Sky Berrian, Kiera Prusmack, Schanaya Barrows, MConnia Chesser) who strut their stuff and hold nothing back. And then, in a turn, the scene is contextualized in a way that gives it an unexpected contour, with some interesting subsequent interaction among the participants. In that subsequent interaction, it appears that one of the women (Kiera Prusmack) is a black person by choice and this presumption becomes one of the sparks of interaction among them. (The turn in this scene also detailed below in the spoilers section.)

A scene with women in prison jumpsuits shows them leaving their internments, presumably for Africa, with a sense of gaining their personal possessions upon release, only to learn that most of what they thought they had was no longer there.

In a final scene, the flight agent attempts to carry a bag containing the heart and soul of American black culture on the plane but it is difficult to remove. And, in a final dramatic gesture, cracks of thunder shake the hall as the group departs and the world changes. Alas, the flight agent, disrobed, misses the plane.

This excellent and unbarred production gains from the absolute abandonment and unrestrained quality of the writing by Jordan Cooper, and dynamic and expressive acting, clearly supported and inspired by the adept direction of Dawn Simmons. At times the speech is unbelievably unrestrained and forceful and makes one truly feel both the intimacy of rage against racism, and the positive embrace of African-American culture, that entwine in each scene. There is so much inspired acting in this show that most of the moments sparkle. In particular, the preacher’s initial declamation offered by De’Lon Grant, and the reality show scene featuring De’Lon Grant, Kiera Prusmack, Schanaya Barrow, Dru Sky Berrian and Maconnia Chesser, stand out, with compelling connective tissue offered throughout by Grant Evan in the role of the flight agent.

Amid the hilarity, particularly in that reality television scene, there are potent reversals and moments of penetrating silence and those are held and conveyed with power and significant gravitas at a variety of points throughout the production.

There is a lot of straight, unedited speech in this production, and one must be prepared to get down to appreciate it. The straightforwardness and dynamism which this production offers is striking and is truly a gift to those who attend, rendering a vivid sense of the unbridled hopes, fears and deep pains that lie at the history of black culture in America.

Grant Evan as the Flight Agent in 'Ain't No Mo'' — Grant Evan as the Flight Agent
in “Ain’t No Mo'”
Photo: Nile Scott Studios
Courtesy of Speakeasy Stage Company

There are some surprises along the way, which I detail here for those who may not want to have them revealed:

Extra info: contains spoilers

In the abortion clinic scene, the man, at the insistence of the woman, removes his shirt to reveal an undershirt punctured by bullet holes. Dead, he represents the reason that the woman does not want to bring a child into the world in which black people are brutalized.

During the reality television scene, all of the women speak in real dialect, forcefully, edgily, with full of rancor and gutter-talk. It’s funny as hell, but, at one point, a voice-over of the director of the television show comes on and tells them how they should be acting. He usually wants them to get down even further. Interestingly, when the actors in the reality show talk with the director, they come out of their street-speak and talk in more distinguished tones, giving a clear sense of how the hood speak is being marketed and capitalized on for sensationalistic reasons. This is all very reminiscent of the theme portrayed in American Fiction, the 1993 award-winning film based on the 2001 novel Erasure by Percival Everett about a black English professor and novelist who discovers that writing in black street-speak ensures far greater success. The point about blackness by choice by one of the women gets a bit lost in the shuffle since it is not entirely clear apart from the character’s somewhat lighter complexion that this is the case.

The last scene in which the transgender flight agent unsuccessfully tries to bring the special bag containing the heart and soul of African-American culture and herself is disrobed, and then seemingly whitened, to represent her transformation to a white male, is a bit of an overloaded narrative. One gets the gist, but there’s a little too much going on all at once in this narrative gesture to take in and digest.

Overall: Excellent, dynamic production with vivid and lively writing, acting and direction – hilarious, unsettling, and moving.

– BADMan (aka Charles Munitz)

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