EVERYTHING KREYÓL IS NEW AGAIN
Seemingly caught between differing identities and life paths, Simone is at a crossroads. Half African American and half Haitian, this early thirties, native New Yorker recently left a potentially successful career in finance because it didn’t suit her more humanistic values. Looking to help heal the world and herself, Simone visits relatives in Haiti, hoping to find a way forward. Will this trip to her father’s homeland bring the answers and healing she seeks? The answer lies in Dominique Morisseau’s layered new play Bad Kreyòl, which opened tonight at Signature Theatre, a co-production with Manhattan Theatre Club. Morisseau (Skeleton Crew, Pipeline, Confederates) offers an affecting, engaging, often funny yet fundamentally human (and messy) exploration of relationships, otherness, colonialism, class and identity. Buoyed by the author’s thoughtful writing, stand-out performances by an excellent cast, and the detailed direction of Tiffany Nichole Greene, Bad Kreyòl offers a unique take on what makes a family. A take that is as colorful, intricate, flowing and patterned as the beautiful Haitian dresses that sometime grace the stage.
Kelly McCreary, Pascale Armand
With both parents now dead and a misfired career, young Simone decides to visit her last remaining blood relative on her Haitian dad’s side, her cousin Gigi. The beautiful and buttoned-up Gigi, perhaps a few years older than Simone, lives in Port au Prince and runs the high-end clothing boutique that was started by their deceased grandmother. Gigi’s good friend/servant/de facto little brother, Pita, lives with her and works for her. Gigi and Simone’s family are well-known on the island. They brought Pita in from the country and his poor family when he was a boy, initially as a house servant. However, over the years, he’s grown up with Gigi and he has become one of the family, who also provided for his education and better life.
Jude Tibeau, Kelly McCreary
Jude Tibeau
Gigi and Simone knew each other as children, when the Haitian relatives would visit New York. Unfortunately, the two never got along. Once Simone arrives at the boutique that also houses her relatives, it’s quickly obvious that, as adults, their contentious relationship has not changed. The upbeat and flamboyantly gay Pita is her saving grace and he quickly befriends Simone. Haitian in bloodline but not in viewpoint, Simone’s inherent American-ness soon causes her to feel othered even among her own people, crystalized in her very limited ability to speak Kreyòl, the language of Haiti. As her cultural missteps continue and one possible misstep may have dire consequences, Simone has to wonder: Is the single-minded desire to heal making her blind to the damage she may also be causing?
Pascale Armand
There’s a beauty in Morisseau’s writing in that it is not a singularly linear ride but leaves room for side trips and shorter stops. That’s not to say that a little editing might not make it a stronger show, but there is something to be said for the author allowing space for her writing to meander a bit. Some situations are good, some are bad, but that is mostly based on perception. Once something is deemed to be objectively bad, how much fix can there be if the fix can cause damage of its own? It’s that frustrating struggle with compromise against desire for authenticity that Morisseau’s dramatized situation and characters capture so well.
Fedna Jacquet, Jude Tibeau, Kelly McCreary
Kelly McCreary, Jude Tibeau
Simone, though a woman of color, is still American and it’s fascinating to see her fall into the same Western-based, colonialist views of Haiti, its people and their possibility for situational change. One of the funniest and most moving moments of the show is when she realizes that she’s turned the Haitian people into her personal “magical negroes”, there to help on her healing journey. Still, Morisseau paints a seemingly authentic representation of Haitian culture including the effects of outside political interference and well-meaning NGOs. She also demonstrates some of the positive and negative aspects of the society itself but done from the perspective of a person living within that community, not an outsider looking in.
Kelly McCreary, Pascale Armand
As Simone, Kelly McCreary creates a memorable if rough-edged young woman. She expertly embodies the intelligence, entitlement, insecurity, capability, self-doubt and desire to shift the world that seem a hallmark of her generation. As Gigi, Pascale Armand is brilliant. Beautiful, strong, funny and protected, she presents a perfectly judgmental, more realistic and possibly bigger-hearted foil to McCreary’s Simone. While Simone has lived a life doing what she wants to do, Gigi has lived doing what she had to do. With that fundamental difference in outlook, their challenging scenes together work extremely well.
Kelly McCreary
Kelly McCreary, Fedna Jacquet
As Pita, Jude Tibeau luxuriates in the heart that both Gigi and Simone have trouble accessing. A funny, sassy yet touching character, his desire to life fully as himself is heart-breaking. But as he says, ”I know how to fight”, so don’t mess with him. The talented Fedna Jacquet shines as the pragmatic seamstress Lovie, and the handsome Andy Lucien delivers as Gigi’s possibly shady business partner, Thomas. Greene’s direction clearly delineates all the different shifts and perspectives of the script while moving everything along at a good pace. She also creates some lovely tableaus on Jason Sherwood’s colorful, revolving and transformative set. Haydee Zelideth’s striking costumes hit all the right notes, with some of Gigi’s beautiful outfits garnering vocal reaction from the audience.
Andy Lucien, Pascale Armand
In her program note, playwright Morisseau quotes a friend who said, “To love a people is to love their language.” Clearly, the half-Haitian Morisseau loves the Haitian people and has created this invitation for us to learn a bit of Kreyòl ourselves. But her invite is not limited to spoken language. It also includes generational, cultural, experiential and emotional communication. We may not become fluent but, as evidenced by Gigi and Simone, it’s worth the effort. Even a little love goes a long way.
Kelly McCreary
photos by Matthew Murphy
Bad Kreyòl
Signature Theatre + Manhattan Theatre Club
Pershing Square Signature Center, 480 W 42nd St.
2 hours and 10 minutes, including intermission
ends on December 1, 2024
for tickets, visit Signature Theatre
