Upon entering the theater, the living room is outfitted to showcase the grandeur of a plantation home. A large portrait of a man is prominently displayed. The time is now. The matriarch of the family, Lillian (Janet Ulrich Brooks), is finally coming to terms with the passing of her husband two years earlier. She has invited all three of her daughters to the Plantation! for a meeting. So why the exclamation point in the title? Well, where playwright Kevin Douglas plans to take us has not one degree of subtlety. That is meant as a compliment.
When finally going through her husband’s possessions, Lillian finds a log of all the slaves bought and sold which had built her family’s fortune. Did I neglect to mention that this is wholly and entirely a comedy? As it happens, one of the longest tenured slaves in the log had a last name entered. Thanks to the magic of social media, Lillian is able to track her descendants down. Guess who’s coming to dinner! Exclamation point is intentional here.
Lillian has three daughters who we quickly learn are a spoiled bitch, an off-kilter middle child who now runs the family business and a troubled youth. In this play, stereotypes are not hinted at. They are aggressively utilized to wring out every laugh possible. When Lillian’s new Facebook friend London (Lily Mojekwu) arrives with her sisters, sit back in your seats and get ready for the fireworks display. Mr. Douglas is embracing farce to confront the combustible tinder of slavery; its profitability, its disgrace and its import today. And did I mention all of this is outrageously hilarious and not politically correct at all?
The powerhouse ensemble here is astonishing good and fully committed to the tone which is essential for this piece. As the middle child Kara, Linsey Page Morton has become my new standard bearer for a depiction of middle child angst. Tamberla Perry’s performance of visiting Madison is deftly imagined and her physicality is icing on the cake. Lookingglass co-founder David Schwimmer’s direction is sure-footed, building to a steady pitch of hilarity and sustaining it for the length of this play. Plantation! is a reckoning with America’s history of slavery packaged as grand entertainment. Improbably brilliant!