Two One-Act Plays by Pearl Cleage
presented by The Alliance Theatre
The Alliance Theatre is presenting two one-act plays by playwright-in-residence Pearl Cleage, “Hospice” and “Pointing at the Moon.”
“Hospice” looks at a contentious relationship between a 47-year-old mother, Alice (Terry Burrell), and her daughter, Jenny (Tinashe Kajese-Bolden), a movie critic. Lasting for what seemed to be more than an hour, this mother and daughter snipe at each other nearly the entire time, on and on and on.
Jenny, who is about to give birth any hour, is living in her mother’s old home. Jenny and Alice have been estranged for decades after her poet mother left her to pursue her own interests in Paris. Alice, bald from treatments for cancer, recently moved back into the home to die. The two rehash the past, Jenny blaming her mother for leaving her when she was 10 and never returning, and Alice defending herself.
It is not until the end when there is a resolution that I really appreciate this show. I cry. All’s well that ends well, and this ends so well.
“Pointing at the Moon” is the second one-act. It’s livelier and more upbeat than the first play. My companion, a journalist and journalism teacher, asked me after the show what that play was about. I burst out laughing. I had no idea.
Two one-act plays by Pearl Cleage, presented by the Alliance Theatre, directed by Timothy Douglas, run through April 15 at the Southwest Arts Center.
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