Gift catalogues and television sitcoms would have us believe that women spend their days swilling white wine, relying upon diurnal infusions of caffeine to restore consciousness when expediency demands. The three generations of women in Michael Turrentine's play, Black Women on Purpose, conduct their daily zoom chat over whiskey, however—imbibed with no apologies (though Grandmother conceals hers in a tankard-sized coffee mug, Mother quaffs hers from a tumbler and teenage Daughter sips contemplatively from a rocks-glass). Their youngest's choice of firewater is what alerts her elders that something is troubling her, and sure enough, Daughter soon confesses that she has broken up with her boyfriend Sam—wait, make that her girlfriend Sam.
Oh, did I mention that the play is only fourteen minutes long? Or that it's one of ten short plays presented by About Face Theater's Kickback festival—a format increasing in popularity as the Big Playhouse Shutdown continues. Unlike the pop-quiz sketches previously offered up as fodder for group-hug conferences, the entries arising from leisure born of forced isolation read more like blueprints for longer narratives. Granted, a few minutes of text are devoted to Grandmother being banished to a break-out room so that Mother and Daughter can have a heart-to-heart extolling the strength and resilience of Black women (while acknowledging the profound weariness engendered thereby), pursuant to the former assuring the latter that "Despite what the world may tell you, God made Black women intentionally. We are Black women on purpose.)"
The factor distinguishing a manifesto that could have emerged as a standard-issue hymn to gynocracy is not merely that it is authored by a man, nor that the sororal chemistry manifested by Renee Lockett, Shariba Rivers, and Anna Dauzvardis makes us want to pour ourselves a libation and join in the discussion, but the hitherto-unexplored suggestion (listen close or you'll miss it) that women-loving-women could be akin to loving oneself and "queerness just another form of empathy." Look for that to spark after-show talkbacks!
