Good Bones – A House, A Community, A Life

Gentrification: a process in which a poor area (as of a city) experiences an influx of middle-class or wealthy people who renovate and rebuild homes and businesses and which often results in an increase in property values and the displacement of earlier, usually poorer residents. Merriam-Webster

Aisha (Susan Kelechi Watson) and Travis (Mamodou Athie), a stylish, upper middle class couple in their late thirties, have bought and are renovating a house near a public housing area called The Heat where she grew up.

Aisha (Susan Kelechi Watson) and Earl (Khris Davis)

Travis comes from money, but except for preferring quality somewhat beyond their budget, seems grounded, positive, and loving. He’s opened his own chef’s restaurant. Aisha helps sports franchises looking to ingratiate themselves with communities. In this case, the building of a stadium, tearing down existing structures and building a new neighborhood they call Fenbrook. She’s an A type, melded to a laptop, who has relocated to help.

Expert home renovation is being executed by local contractor, Earl (Khris Davis). Everyone gets along famously. Travis appreciates the skill, efficiency, and calm with which things are handled, not to mention the well spoken hire. Aisha and Earl have common memories and tastes. She loosens up around him. Occasional vernacular slips into speech. They flirt.

Aisha (Susan Kelechi Watson)

When Earl discovers what she’s doing there, however, a breech occurs. “I’m not trying to throw out the baby with the bathwater,” she protests. “You’re putting people out of their homes, pricing them out,” Earl counters. He implies she’s not asking the community what it wants and needs. (Is that not her job?)

She shows him a model of what’s coming. He points out locations of sweet memory. Later in the play, Aisha will use the same model to identify streets where violence occurred. Travis has an unnecessarily disrespectful run in with cops to indicate how crossover is nebulous. Proximity – past and present, ostensibly dangerous and safe – likely won’t affect authority.  

Aisha (Susan Kelechi Watson) and Travis (Mamodou Athie)

In a New York Times interview with Salamishah Tillet, the playwright says he first learned about eminent domain when he came to the U.S. from Nairobi. “I was just in awe that the government could take people’s property. And then, it is America,” he said. “This country was built on displacing people.         

Aisha and Earl are defined by starkly opposite points of view. Travis embodies the couple’s future, rattled by his wife’s increasing conflict. Add to the three Earl’s younger sister Carmen, who’s embraced upwardly mobile change in her own life and tries to act as mediator.

Tea Guarino (Carmen), Khris David (Earl), Susan Kelechi Watson (Aisha), Mamoudou Athie (Travis)

Pulitzer Prize winning IJames (for Fat Ham) has given us much to chew on. Language is natural and credible. That both sides of the issue are African American is unique, but there’s something missing. Neither Aisha nor the playwright offer potential solutions. Both marriage and community are left hanging. Oh, and there’s a red herring poltergeist. Why? We leave unsatisfied.

Susan Kelechi Watson is splendid as the unsettled Aisha. Palpable tension is as authentic as the unguarded hometown-girl persona. Khris Davis’ Earl is wonderfully real and likeable. We can see him think/consider. Mamoudou Athie (Travis) is a bit stiff until the end of the piece, but it leans to character. Tea Guarino (Carmen) presents solid portrayal.

Director Saheem Ali, an old hand with IJames’ work, clearly understands the playwright’s rhythms and intention.

Scenic design (Maruti Evans) is terrific. The measured disclosure of an Architectural Digest kitchen relates directly to plot. Oana Botez’s costumes are apt until a dinner party at which Aisha wears a flashy urban dress both unsuited to her style and over the top for occasion.

Photos by Joan Marcus
Opening: Khris Davis, Susan Kelechi Watson, Mamoudou Athie

Good Bones by IJames
Directed by Saheem Ali

Through October 27, 2024