PlayMakers Delivers Crumbs of Joy and Wisdom with a Classic Lynn Nottage Play

Mengwe Wapimewah and Jadah Johnson in Crumbs from the Table of Joy. Photo by HuthPhoto. Courtesy of PlayMakers Repertory Company.

Back in 1995, before Lynn Nottage was a Pulitzer Prize winner, she debuted Crumbs from the Table of Joy, an intimate play that focuses on the recently-upturned, rapidly changing lives of a Black family in 1950s Brooklyn. This play, under the direction of Tia James, has now found its way to the PlayMakers Repertory Company stage, and the timing couldn’t be more apt. The play is one that deals with issues of race, political unrest, and upheaval, all things that are currently on the forefront of everyone’s minds.

But, even in turmoil, as the play explores, life goes on, and people are people. The people, in this case, include young Ernestine Crump, portrayed by an endearing Jadah Johnson; her even younger sister, Ermina (Mengwe Wapimewah); and their father Godfrey (Nate John Mark). At the show’s open, the three have lost the matriarch of their family and, in their grief and the father’s misguided attempt to follow Father Devine, they have relocated. What follows is a journey of sorts for all involved, one that’s compounded by the reappearance of restless Lily (Jasminn Johnson), the girls’ aunt, into their lives. Later, a second mother figure, Gerte (Elizabeth Dye), is also introduced, adding more tension and turmoil.

And, while “tense’ is a great way to describe much of the production, there is also humor, lightness, and relatability to be found. As Ernestine, Jada Johnson serves as a trustworthy, likable narrator, one who is surprisingly even-keeled despite her propensity toward fantasy and her love of all things theatrical. Her lively, wide-eyed performance brings Ernestine alive and instantly turns her into a character worth rooting for.

It is through her eyes that we watch the complicated family dynamics at play. And, yet, while her love for her troubled, strong-willed aunt is strong, Nottage’s tender writing reveals the true reality of the situation, bit by bit, in a way that enthralls the audience and creates no villains. As that aforementioned aunt, Jasminn Johnson hits all the right notes. She is both giggly and giddy and brooding and dissonant, giving an ever-shifting performance that allows the audience to see her both through Ernestine’s eyes and as she actually is.

Likewise, Marks delivers a chameleon-style performance, aptly demonstrating the conflicting emotions of a father torn between religious devotion and love for his daughters. Dye is a somewhat lighter breath of fresh air when she comes on the scene but also delivers complexity in her performance, and Wapimewah truly shines (and often outshines) as the petulant sister forced along for the ride.

Their inevitably intersecting stories play out against Jan Chambers’ simple, open set, which allows viewers to peer, dollhouse-like, into every room of the family’s small space. Chambers also creates, for a few brief minutes, a whirring subway effect with an ingenious blend of splashed paint and effective lighting and sound features (Kathy A. Perkins and G. Clausen).

Despite these few colorful moments, the production has a muted feel, a feel like a pause, which is exactly what the play is about—a brief but eclipsing moment in time. It’s not a flashy production, but it is one that garners thought, challenges beliefs, and asks us to think about where we are versus where we’ve been, both as individuals and as a nation.

The production is a thought-provoking mix of silly and somber, a slice-of-life view into a world that hasn’t been explored enough. Original, unique, and touching on multiple levels, it’s more than worthy of a view and some serious contemplation after.