REVIEW: Furlough’s Paradise (Theater Alliance)

We’re in the thick of Fall now, which means it’s Introspection Time. Theater Alliance is stepping up to the plate with Furlough’s Paradise, a pensive two-hander about what it means to be free and how deep family ties cut.

Book

a.k. payne has crafted a book that is as tender as it is urgent. This drama covers the reunion of two cousins following a death in the family. Mina is a successful graphic designer based in Los Angeles and splits her time between there, San Francisco, and the unnamed town she grew up in. Sade is staying with her in the house she rents out as an airbnb, on furlough from prison for the weekend. United in grief, this springboards into a softly intertwined conversation of privilege, Blackness, and idealism. The dialogue is fluid though at times uninspiring, but seldom loses intensity in subject or relevance. As the days transition, dream sequences emerge, eventually colliding into a united nightmare of achievement that haunts the two women. In a lot of ways, this is a return to what kinds of shows Theater Alliance is known for: deep, often uncomfortable explorations of Blackness that shows and tells, if not indirectly. But in their new era, this indicates that there is room for stories of all sorts. 8/10

Acting

Here’s a good rule of thumb: if Renea Brown is in a show, you go out of your way to see it. It was true in The Mountaintop, Sojourners, and The American Five. It remains true in Paradise. Her performance as Mina, the “one who made it out” here in Paradise, is layered and familiar, dutiful to the themes of the text in ways that create a complex and compelling point of view. But it’s a good thing we have two thumbs, affording us another rule that we can carve out for Hillary Jones. As Sade, the furloughed cousin in question, she commands the stage with vivid emotion and movement. Jones excels in providing the beating heart of the story as she grapples with a strange, different world while also handling familial grief and cycles of imprisonment within her community. 10/10

Production

Autumn Angelettie returns to Theater Alliance to direct after last year’s stunning Covenant. What defined that production, for me, was a punctuate in the form of a suddenly physical dynamic that expresses many of the themes in the show. This is present in this, too, in the form of the dream sequences, which are hauntingly choreographed by Sandra Holloway and joined by stellar projection work from Luis Garcia. The staging itself isn’t particularly exciting, but the intimacy of the space makes you feel at home. 7/10

Viz

The Alliance is back with their scratchy, line-drawn cover art, which I still think is emblematic of their bootstrapped persona. The pre-show living room is also well detailed, but doesn’t provide much pretext for the deeper show content. 4/10

Verdict

Paradise is another solid drama from Theater Alliance, featuring a pair of excellent performances in an intimate space. 29/40