Crumbs From The Table Of Joy

Play (1995)
by Lynn Nottage
Directed by Tasia A. Jones
Lyric Stage Company of Boston
Copley Square area, Boston
January 10 – February 2, 2025

With Thomika Marie Bridwell (Lily Ann Green), Dominic Carter (Godfrey Crump), Catia (Ermina Crump), Madison Margaret Clark (Ernestine Crump), Bridgette Hayes (Gerte Schulte)

Godfrey Crumb (Dominic Carter) has lost his wife, though it’s note entirely clear how, perhaps in a car accident. Having lived in the South, he and his daughters, Ernestine aka Ernie (Madison Margaret Clark) and Ermina (Catia), have moved north to New York City and Godfrey has become attached to a religious leader who calls himself Father Divine. (This character is actually based on an historic character of the same name.) Godfrey’s dead wife’s sister Lily (Thomika Marie Bridwell) shows up and proceeds to make herself a part of the household. It appears that Godfrey, before his conversion to Father Divine’s sect, has had a history of some kind of sensual engagement with Lily, though we don’t get many details on that. Despite her suggestive pursuit, Godfrey demurs and instead gets involved with Gerte (Bridgette Hayes), a white German woman. Needless to say, this is something of a shock to the household – unsettling to the two teenage daughters and certainly to Lily. As the more serious older daughter, Ernestine, looks towards high school graduation, she and her more playful younger sister Ermina take refuge together in the movies and compensate for the complications in their domestic life by dwelling vicariously in the romances of the cinematic universe.

This quite long play – two hours and twenty minutes – gets off to a somewhat slow start but gradually builds, and by the curtain at the end of the second act has realized its full potential as a powerful family drama. Ernestine doubles as the narrator throughout and, perhaps due to a desire to craft the development of her character and the quality of her speech over the trajectory of the play, there is something muffled and not well articulated in her narration earlier on. It is striking, therefore, when, in the final scene, Ernestine gives a powerful, forceful and highly articulate speech, full of the spirit of self-determination.

Though we know early on that Godfrey is consumed by his devotion to Father Divine and muffles his own existence within his subjugation to this cult leader, we do not get a clear sense of who Godfrey is or what his dilemmas are until Lily arrives on the scene. When she does, all hell breaks loose, and gradually Godfrey’s character, challenged by Lily and thrust into relationship with Gerte, takes on shape. Those demonstrable features of character gradually begin to develop in Ernestine and, as well, in Ermina, whose hilarious and wry side emerges as the play builds.

Nottage uses a variety of dramatic techniques to amplify the tragic elements among the various relationships. Clearly, there is tension from the outset between Gerte and Lily, because of rivalry over Godrey’s attentions, and because of simmering mistrust across the racial divide. At one point, however, Lily offers Gerte a drink and then invites her to dance, and one can’t believe how wonderful this is. Gerte graciously accepts and they take swigs from the same snifter and begin to take a few steps, and it all is done with pizzazz and gusto and one thinks gee, anything is possible with a little liberality and generosity. But then, alas, we find out from Ernestine, as narrator, that this was only her imagined scene. It’s a clever moment, momentarily uplifting, and then heartbreaking.

Numerous supporting narrative implications appear throughout, including that Father Divine has married a white woman, which seems to vouchsafe Godfrey’s relationship with Gerte. And Lily claims to be a political organizer, though when tested, it appears that the home of her organizing efforts is a bar uptown.

More dramatically, there is one scene in which Godfrey comes in bloodied after being attacked for being with a white woman and it raises the racial issue vividly and directly, echoing the family tensions around Gerte’s presence in the household. It’s a vivid and dramatic moment and Dominic Carter pulls it off very well.

As Lily, Thomika Marie Bridwell immediately brings electricity to the stage, with a powerful and intoxicating presence. She draws one in with overflowing personality, and she moves with a suggestive and electric intensity, making her come-on to Godfrey all the more vivid a challenge to his new found religious restraint.

As Gerte, Bridgette Hayes does a very good job of holding down a role which might well be saccharine or unappealing or both, and which exhibits its complexities later on. As Godfrey, Carter really comes into his own as the play develops. At first, his character does not come forth so clearly, but this may well be a function of the writing in the early part of the play which seems more inchoate than the writing later on. This is also the case with the characters of the two girls, Ernestine and Ermina, who seem to fade in a hazy background in the play’s early stages. As the narrative gains force and sets itself forth with conviction, their characters emerge much more clearly as well. As Ermina, Catia comes to show an agile and ready wit, and especially in her forceful finale, Madison Margaret Clark demonstrates her right and real stuff as Ernestine.

Wonderful jazz permeates the play in a tasteful way and in the final part of the play Lily gives a wonderful speech about how music in Africa had been a means of settling disputes. As she details the elements of how each side would put forth its particular rhythms and engage with its counterparts in seeking to form a meeting of different approaches, she sets the stage for following up an appreciation for how jazz in America became what it did, and sets an inspiring subtext for understanding the scene of complexity and the spirit of resolution put forth here.

The title of the play is a bit loaded – perhaps intentionally ironic. This is not particularly a joyful play, but it does bring to light some of the crumbs that emerge from the complex loaf of dissoluteness, misaligned sexual energies, racial tensions, and religious extremism. Starting with hesitancy and a certain amount of inchoate energy, it certainly develops to the point of fulfillment and by the end bears significant dramatic fruits.

– BADMan (aka Charles Munitz)