"In the Book Of ..." another fine chapter in ASF's history...Rick Harmon
Although it has been said that the Alabama Shakespeare Festival production "In the Book Of..." is about immigration, those who see it will quickly realize that while the play may address immigration, what it is about is great theater.
This is not some didactic polemic on a controversial issue, it is one of those rare productions that manages to be consistently funny and incredibly moving -- one that haunts your thoughts long after the play has ended.
The play, written by John Walch as part of ASF's Southern Writer's Project, concerns immigration, but its real focus is on disparate, broken people in a small Southern town and how through love and strength of family they make each other whole again.
The plot begins a world away from Mississippi.
Lt. Naomi Watkins (Rachel Leslie) is leaving both Afghanistan and the Army, but not by choice. Her husband, a military officer who deployed to Afghanistan at the same time she did, has died in battle. Now, she seems to have little interest in whether she lives or dies, an attitude that has endangered the troops she commands.
But she wants to make her last act in the military a meaningful one. Anisah (Sarah Corey), an Afghani translator working with the U.S. military, is also a widow. Insurgents murdered her husband, who was also a translator for the military, and now her life is at risk. Naomi, who is returning to the small Mississippi town of Broxton where her husband's family lives and where her husband had a home, is determined to bring Anisah with her.
But her timing couldn't be worse because her sister-in-law, Gail (Blair Sams), has just had an epiphany at McDonald's.
Gail has known things haven't been right in her life for a long time. Her husband, Bo Sr. (Christoper Gerson), isn't the man he used to be. He once enjoyed working with his hands. Then a wave of foreign immigrants willing to work for less sank the busi ness, forcing him to work at a sandwich-shop franchise, and seemingly emasculating him in the process.Their son, Bo Jr. (Matt Dickson), is in much worse shape, living a life of misery in penance for accidentally causing the death of his brother.
In a brilliant monologue, Gail tells how her feelings about having illegal foreigners working at McDonald's and laughing at her because they can't understand her accent -- foreigners who have forever changed the small town she so fondly remembers and who cost her husband his livelihood -- coalesces into anger. Soon, she has grabbed a broom, is standing on the McDonald's counter and is talking about sweeping out the illegals, so America can once again be for Americans.
Her words don't just send Latino employees scurrying out the back door, they strike a chord with many others in the town. So much so that Gail is pressed (not that she has to be pressed that hard) into running for mayor, and her issue of sweeping out illegal immigrants might just win her the campaign.
It's then that Naomi arrives with her own illegal immigrant in tow.
"In the Book Of. . ." has a fine cast of characters, but no villains. What we see are good people who disagree. In fact, perhaps the play's greatest strength is that Walch, director Risa Brainin and a superb cast have created a production in which we not only like every character, but care about them.
There is perhaps no bigger reviewer cliche than "I laughed. I cried," but few will not be able to say it after this funny, uplifting play loosely on the biblical Book of Ruth about kind characters in a Mississippi town who help each other recover from private tragedies.
If the play is wonderful, it is matched by ASF's production. There is a valid argument that the play has one too many conclusions, but there is no argument that Brainin and the cast (which is only five people but seems like far more) do a brilliant job.
The result is that the ASF-created "In the Book Of ..." is another fine chapter in ASF's history.
