Displaying items by tag: LaKecia Harris

Kimberly Dixon-Mays’ debut play Rabbits In Their Pockets, developed in the Lifeline BIPOC 2024 Workshop and now receiving a world premiere under the direction of Christopher Wayland, is a bold but uneven first effort. The play aspires to braid together family drama, Black folklore, and speculative Afrofuturism, but its script often buckles under its own ambition. Fortunately, Wayland’s staging and the committed, charismatic performances of his cast keep the production afloat, offering the audience enough vitality and resonance to stay engaged.

At the heart of the play are two sisters facing grief and legacy. Ash (Lakecia Harris), the elder, is a methodical aerospace engineer who believes joy can be engineered, even embedded into the walls of their late father’s home. Harley (Simmery Branch), younger, mercurial, and endlessly playful, sees improv as a distinctly Black technology—an art of survival through adaptability and wit. Together they clash over what to do with the family house: sell it, reinvent it, or transform it into something larger than themselves. Along the way, they are joined by Jasper (Marcus D. Moore), a friend and aspiring performer, and Inola (Felisha McNeal), an enigmatic elder who oscillates between investor, trickster, and perhaps even ancestor.

The script brims with ideas—sometimes too many for its own good. Dixon-Mays clearly has a fertile imagination and a keen sense of cultural inheritance. Br’er Rabbit folktales and the language of improvisation surface as recurring motifs, meant to show how Black families survive through cunning, resilience, and creativity. But rather than letting these motifs emerge organically, the dialogue often pauses to explain them at length. Ash’s “joy technology” speeches are dense with jargon, and Harley repeats her philosophy of improv as survival until the point is belabored. What should be vibrant metaphors instead risk feeling like lectures.

The dramatic stakes are also uneven. The decision to sell or keep the house is meant to stand in for deeper questions of legacy, cultural continuity, and grief. Yet too often the debate feels abstract, more a clash of ideas than a struggle rooted in palpable necessity. What happens if they don’t sell? If Ash’s joy system fails? If Harley’s dream fizzles? The play gestures toward these consequences without fully realizing them, softening the urgency.

Some characters suffer from this imbalance. Jasper, despite Marcus D. Moore’s affable performance, fades into the background as the sisters’ conflict escalates. Inola, wonderfully embodied by Felisha McNeal, is fascinating but underdefined: sometimes elder, sometimes ancestor, sometimes entrepreneur. This ambiguity could be powerful if sharpened, but as written, it feels more inconsistent than intentional.

Where Dixon-Mays overreaches, Christopher Wayland’s direction provides clarity. He keeps the pacing brisk, shapes the tonal shifts with care, and leans into the play’s improvisational spirit without letting it sprawl.

The performances are this production’s saving grace. Lakecia Harris gives Ash a flinty discipline that gradually reveals a woman undone by grief. Simmery Branch lights up the stage as Harley, balancing mischievous humor with aching vulnerability. Marcus D. Moore mines Jasper for humor and pathos, especially in his monologue about being both celebrated and consumed as a “rabbit.” And McNeal, magnetic and sly, grounds the play’s slipperiest role with commanding presence.

Rabbits In Their Pockets is not yet a fully realized play—it is a workshop bursting with possibility, weighed down by over-explanation and underdeveloped stakes. Yet as a debut, it reveals Dixon-Mays as a writer unafraid to ask large questions about joy, memory, and cultural survival. Thanks to Wayland’s sharp direction and the cast’s deeply felt performances, audiences can glimpse the vibrant play struggling to emerge.

Recommended

When: Through October 5

Where: Lifeline Theatre,  6912 N. Glenwood

Running time: 90 minutes

Tickets: $25 - $45 at

773-761-4477 and www.lifelinetheatre.com

As we drove away from Lifeline Theatre I asked my companion what she thought of From the Mississippi Delta. “I have no words yet,” she said. “I’m still just reveling in delight.”

This play is indeed delightful. Even when eleven-year-old Phelia is raped; even when she and Aunt Baby are squashing cockroaches; even when her own town shuns her – even these scenes manage to delight without ever compromising the gravity of the story.

And the best part is it’s all true! Dr Endesha Ida Mae Holland (1944-2006) wrote the play From the Mississippi Delta based on her memoir/autobiography of the same name (which you can purchase in the lobby). As author and as playwright, Dr. Holland, professor emeritus of theatre at University of Southern California, chronicles her journey from dirt-farm poverty and the brutality of 1950’s Jim Crow, enduring rape and prostitution before finding herself in civil rights activism. It took twenty years, but Dr Holland completed her bachelors, masters, and doctoral degrees at the University of Minnesota. From the Mississippi Delta is a testament to Holland’s perseverance, and to the myriad sheroes who encouraged and sustained her.

The play, brilliantly directed by Lifeline Theatre’s Artistic Director ILesa Duncan, includes dozens of characters, all played by the cast of three actors: LaKecia Harris, Arielle Leverett, and Jenise Sheppard, billed in the program as Woman 1, Woman 2, and Woman 3. Harris and Sheppard alternate playing Phelia while Leverett primarily represents her mother, Aunt Baby. Aunt Baby’s artistry as a midwife leads a local (white, male – of course) doctor to call her ‘the second doctor’. The scene in which she rotates and delivers a breech baby left me stunned.

The play begins with the women relating hideous vignettes, beginning with Emmett Till, and each account ends with the words ‘This is the Mississippi Delta. This is where I was born and grew up’. After a handful of stories, they begin singing “Trouble in Mind”; that’s when I fell under their spell. Throughout the play they brilliantly perform at least a dozen iconic selections from blues and spirituals. Music Director Ricky Harris and Sound Director Deon Custard collaborate to meld the music perfectly with the action and with external and peripheral sound effects. Harris’ decision to forego accompaniment or instrumentation is inspired, as the three magnificent voices are enriched by a capella performance.

FunFact of the Day:  the a capella genre originated with African Americans singing in African American barbershops: the original barbershop quartets.  

(Top to Bottom) Arielle Leverett as Woman 2, Jenise Sheppard as Woman 3, and LaKecia Harris as Woman 1; in Lifeline Theatre and Pegasus Theatre’s “From the Mississippi Delta.”

Scenic Designer Angela Weber Miller’s amazing multi-level set has several doors and other options for egress, which choreographer Tanji Harper makes adroit use of to allow the three actors to instill a phenomenal amount of detail into each scene. Props Designer Wendy Ann caches props and bits of costumery (designed by Gregory Graham) all about the set, allowing the actors to change character by simply donning an apron or shucking a hat. The sparse furniture onstage is just as versatile: an ironing board converts to a birthing bed and later becomes grandstand seats for Phelia’s debut as a stripper. The transformations are skillfully abetted by Lighting Designer Levi J Wilkins. Stage Manager Roxie Kooi stitches it all together into an amazing package for Production Manager Adi Davis.

Everything lately seems to need an Intimacy consultant – even the American Ballet Theatre recently used one for a pas de deux – and Gregory Geffrard keeps the actors on the good side of the fine line separating stimulating from stodgy. 

An African American deep-south accent is tough to pull off without sounding like Amos & Andy, so my hat’s off to Dialect Coach Shadana Patterson. Her job was made even tougher by the fact that white folks are notoriously challenged by African American dialects and accents. In fact, though I was encouraged to see the theatre more than 2/3-full, it was almost totally lacking Black faces, which I find both surprising and concerning.,

My melanin deficiency invalidates my opinion, but I’m going to give it anyway: I think African Americans, particularly Black women, would very much enjoy From the Mississippi Delta. It exposes the singular brutality lurking at the intersection of bigotry and misogyny. It is a testimonial to the strength and resilience of Black women, a hymn to the human spirit. 

Look -- if for no other reason, go for the music.  See From the Mississippi Delta and be transported by these three magnificent voices.

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