The metaphor-stuffed play Fireflies takes place “somewhere down South, where the sky is on fire.” In the fall of 1963, an African American married couple is wrestling with racial prejudice and many demons both externally and internally. Charles (Khris Davis) is a famed preacher who delivers impassioned speeches written by his wife Olivia. She hears bombs going off in her head. The audience sees bombs going off in the sky which, at first, underscore the horrible environment in the deep South where black people are constantly being killed. Funerals are frequent, eulogies need to be written, life is scary and uncertain. The bombs explode throughout the play and there are many more reasons for them to go off.
Fireflies is one of those extremely topical plays in which we must face our complicated and disturbing past with a reflective lens on our present. Unfortunately, the play is not a very good one. The words flow unnaturally from the two characters as the metaphors are heavy handed and stop the flow of the play for a bit of speechifying. The fireflies of the title are the souls of people in the world. The sky is on fire. Olivia’s mind is overwhelmed with thoughts and fears and regrets. Donja R. Love’s play nicely touches on the time period and the perils facing this couple but the play is grossly overstuffed with plot twists.
DeWanda Wise played Olivia and her performance was very good. I felt her emotions as she traversed her fears and all of the pain she was feeling and hiding. Her tears were heartbreakingly real and her eyes spoke volumes about her state of mind. Ms. Wise managed to captivate my attention throughout which helped me survive the soap opera dramatics of the plot. Even when the story went skidding off the rails with revelation upon revelation, I felt Olivia’s pain, sorrow and regret. Her history and the prejudices she faced and feared still need to be told and need to be heard, but in a much better play.