Playwright Donja R. Love’s, Fireflies is the second of a three-play trilogy entitled “The Love Plays” that depicts the experiences of queer people of color during slavery (Sugar in Our Wounds), the Civil Rights Movement, and the Black Lives Matter Movement (In the Middle). Set “somewhere down South” in the Fall of 1963 just after the bombing of the African American 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, that left four young girls dead, Fireflies is the story of Olivia (Christiana Clark), the brittle wife of Reverend Charles Emmanuel Grace (Lester Purry), a fiery orator in the mode of Martin Luther King, who shares the same kind of strengths and weaknesses of that great man.
Olivia suffers from PTSD engendered by the daily life of a Black woman in the South during the struggle for basic civil rights that left so many people cruelly murdered. The action takes place in the kitchen of the tidy home of Olivia and Charles that looks like anyone’s home of that time—a wall phone, a nice white range, a refrigerator with a handle of the kind that would suffocate a curious child who crawled in and pulled the door closed.
In a terrific bit of modern stagecraft, a vast projection looms behind the Grace’s kitchen (kudos to projections the designer). Prior to the start of the action, the audience is treated to a twinkling starscape, and for the observant theatregoer, an occasional shooting star. At lights up, there are distant fires to be seen and some red, twinkling fireflies, and, during the action, the recurring, rising smoke from the loud internal bombs of Olivia’s PTSD.
When husband Charles returns from Birmingham, where he had given a touching speech after the church bombing, Olivia, a closet smoker, quickly stubs her cigarette, sprays the air, hides the ashtray, and sucks a lozenge. Charles is all love and enthusiasm when he walks in the door, singing and dancing with his wife. It’s the picture of domestic bliss. But soon cracks start to appear, and the dynamics of the relationship lurch into the bitter territory of secrets kept and revealed on both sides.
Ms. Clark and Mr. Purry are ideal in their roles playing with love and passion, as well as the acrimonious physical, emotional and verbal sparring that call to mind Strindberg’s Dance of Death. They are superb. A reading of the program tells me that this is not their first play together.
Keenly directed by Lou Bellamy, Fireflies is a tough show that engages the audience with searing power. It is not easy to cope with such emotion. The heart clenches and releases as the characters bull through their angst, anger, and, yes, their love. As a lover of tragedy, I have to say that this play kicked off a strong emotional reaction in me. I left the theatre stunned. I look forward to experiencing the two plays that bookend Fireflies.
South Coast’s superb creative staff includes Vicki Smith, scenic design; David Kay Mickelsen, costume design; Don Darnutzer, lighting design; Scott W. Edwards, sound design; Jeffrey Elias Teeter, projections; and Joann DeNaut, CSA, casting. The stage manager is Alyssa Escalante.
Fireflies continues on the Julianne Argyros Stage through January 26 at South Coast Repertory, 655 Town Center Drive in Costa Mesa.
Paul Myrvold's Theatre Notes 