Sally & Tom – This is Not a Love Story

Good Company is in rehearsal for “The Pursuit of Happiness,” the story of slave Sally Hemings and her Master/lover Thomas Jefferson. Lead actress Luce (Sheria Irving) is also the playwright, her lover Mike, (Gabriel Ebert), playing Jefferson, the director. Luce is Black, Mike, White. They have a history of partnering on money losing, politically charged productions. This one, for a change, looks marketable. We segue back and forth from the play within the play to interruptions and offstage scenes.

1798 Monticello, rural Virginia. Widower Thomas Jefferson (Gabriel Ebert) is just back from three years in Paris. His entourage includes farcically vapid (as portrayed) daughters Patsy (Kate Nowlin, who also plays Ginger, the company’s dramaturge and choreographer), and fussing Polly Jefferson (Sun Mee Chomet, who also plays Scout, its stage manager and dance captain). Chomet is particularly distinctive in her characterization. Both actresses are aptly wince-inducing.

Kate Nowlin (Patsy) Sheria Irving (Sally Heming), Sun Mee Chomet (Polly)

Slaves James (Alano Miller – Kwame offstage) and Sally Heming (Sheria Irving), also return to the estate. James serves as valet; Sally ostensibly takes care of the Master’s children. While abroad, Jefferson has begun an “affair” with 14 year-old Sally. Her brother knows, but holds in tongue in hopes a promise to be freed will be honored. (He could’ve successfully run away in Paris, but family is here. Were he to escape in Virginia, he’d be hunted down.) Miller is credibly intense. A contentious speech is splendid.

Called to the nation’s capitol, New York, Jefferson must decide whom to take, whom to leave, and which slaves to sell or lease minimizing estate expenses. Will Sally’s sister Maggie, also Jefferson’s wife’s half sister (Kristolyn Lloyd – Luce’s best friend Mary), and her husband, Devon (Nathan offstage) be separated? “Remind me why I agreed to be the country’s first Secretary of State when I don’t want anything to do with the government,” the diplomat grouses. He’d frankly prefer to just write, but ego rules. At first Jefferson intends for things to go on exactly as they have been. There are complications, however, that tip precarious balance. These are mirrored offstage.

Sheria Irving (Sally Heming), Alano Miller (James Heming), Daniel Petzold, Gabriel Ebert (Thomas Jefferson) Leland Fowler(Nathan) and Kristolyn Lloyd (Maggie)

Exactly how transactional was the Heming/Jefferson relationship? Did the girl love this man or bend to him knowing no other as provider and keeper? Did she fear him? Would she know the difference? “What if it were grooming, rape, and reconciliation?” Luce posits. Writer and director have to deal with an interfering producer. Their bond suffers as Luce backseat drives. She begins to rethink and rewrite. What unspoken bargain have she and Mike struck to sustain their relationship? Parks has one eye on history, one on the present.

Sheria Irving is believable and sympathetic as both Luce and Sally. The women are stubborn. Both exhibit pride and principle, Sally’s shaped by circumstance on which Luce intends to shine light. Gabriel Ebert’s Mike/Jefferson arrives manipulative, withheld. The actor unabashedly gives us an unlikeable personality.

Sheria Irving (Luce), Gabriel Ebert (Mike)

Errant lines in “The Pursuit of Happiness” start to reflect the playwright’s socio-political beliefs. A speech aimed at Jefferson by the furious James is Shakespearean. He reminds his Master of Thomas Paine and the rights of man. “A reckoning is coming during which the likes of you will be crushed by the likes of me! The shame you lay on me, you will justly wear!…” It’s incendiary.  Luce is aware James would never say those things aloud. It’s what she and Suzan-Lori Parks feel, however. If the playwright leaves it in, what follows?

The ambitious Kwame knows it’s his moment to break out of television. He threatens to quit should the oration be cut. Mike feels it will alienate part of their audience. Luce accuses him of pandering. There are two hook-ups. One actor gets a film. Scout ponders whether there were any Koreans in Virginia. (She is Korean.) Cast changes and money problems add to tension. Daniel Petzold (Geoff offstage) attempts to provide bungling comic relief.

Gabriel Ebert (Thomas Jefferson), Sheria Irving (Sally Heming), Alano Miller (James)

There are times actual director Steve H. Broadnax III seems to be herding wet animals. He does it well. We slip/slide from scene to scene always knowing where, when, and with whom we are.

Back at Monticello, Patsy begins to glean what’s going on. Sally’s lies are quick. Jefferson justifies his decisions. “Some 600 enslaved people work here every day to make my America,” he declares proudly. “They make me a yearly profit of four percent…I stand at the intersection of the horrible and the great.” Parks repeatedly reveals that “all men are created equal” was, to practical Jefferson, just words.

Sheria Irving (Sally Heming), Gabriel Ebert (Thomas Jefferson)

Suzan-Lori Parks gives her heroine two lengthy, redundant  speeches, redundant not in words – the playwright is too good for that – but in content. It’s interesting to note that slaves are more articulate than their Masters. Thoughts and speech likely historical in vernacular emerge polished by time and playwrights’ (both Parks and Luce) intellect. The piece wants editing, but it’s smart, fast, provocative, and well worth seeing.

Spare scenic design by Riccardo Hernandez evocatively does the job, though the reason for dark, textured walls is obscure, their presence off-putting. And wall to wall carpeting wasn’t introduced until the 1930s. Rodrigo Munoz’ costumes are pitch perfect. Separates neatly lend themselves to visible dressing and undressing.

Heming (1773-1835) and Jefferson (1743 –1826) were together 30 years. She bore him seven children, six lived, four to adulthood. George Washington’s will freed his slaves when wife Martha died. Sally was unofficially “given her time” by Jefferson’s daughter Martha after his death. Only her children Beverly, Harriet, Madison and Easton were freed in their father’s will.

Photos by Joan Marcus
Opening: Sheria Irving (Sally Heming), Gabriel Ebert (Thomas Jefferson)

Sally & Tom by Suzan-Lori Parks
Directed by Steve H. Broadnax III
The Public Theater in Association with The Guthrie Theater

Through May 26, 2024