Our triple play weekend came to a conclusion on Sunday with “Mud Row” at Peninsula Community Theatre, a gripping (and often funny) drama about family, hope, and three couples’ various struggles with and views of those themes. 

The first of those three couples (both in time and on stage) is composed of sisters Elsie (Kimariah Jones) and Frances (Anastasia Conyers, who we recently saw in Downing-Gross’s “The Color Purple”).  Jones leads off with a hilarious monologue, delivered directly to the audience, about, of all things, where streets got their names, and why different people live on different streets.  This does a nice job of scene-setting, as the entire rest of the play focuses on a single house, with each member of the cast having a different relationship with the house and the people who live there.  Elsie and Frances are young adults living during the Civil Rights Era, and it quickly becomes apparent that they have very different ideas as to how they should go about bettering their lives.  Elsie is not interested in challenging the status quo; instead, she is more focused on finding a well-to-do African American man to marry.  Meanwhile, Frances is ready to take stands against segregation and fight for her rights in a more active way.  Conyers does a wonderful job taking on this task and delivering multiple inspiring speeches that made me ready to get up there and walk across that bridge with her. 

The second duo is the married couple Regine (Ashley Williams) and Davin (Rico Robinson).  They are the most successful (as society would deem it) couple, with a stable family life, a little bit of savings, and reliable jobs.  Williams is fascinating to watch and brings palpable feeling to the role – pay special attention to her storytelling prowess when she describes running away from home as a child, and then her ability to bring incredible emotion when raising her voice late in the play.  Meanwhile, Robinson was excellent, with his overflowing charisma spilling right into this optimistic role, with big thoughts about helping his people and the Black community, while also supporting his wife.  You totally want to be his character’s friend by the end of the play, in no small part due to Robinson’s rendering.  And this couple’s dialogue brings that Elsie/Frances debate into the modern day, focusing on different issues and different ideas, but still showing the different perspectives and paths you can take to try to pull yourself out of the “mud”.

The third twosome is the one that goes through the most “out-loud” character arcs, with nothing subtle happening between them or in their stories.  They are Toshi, played by “Chicken and Biscuits” alum KeeAjah Baldwin, and Tyriek, performed by 2023-24 ACT-y winner Clifford Clark.  Baldwin’s turn is one of our favorite performances of the year thus far.  She brings passion, and the right amount of crazy, to the role, without over-playing it.  And she plays off of Clark perfectly.  Clark, for his part, is really interesting as the “street” guy who is working with his girlfriend Toshi to become more legitimate.  He does a nice job of being genuine and having the character’s strong motivations come through, while, similar to Davin, being there to support his girlfriend.  And the chemistry and “rat-a-tat” of the dialogue between Clark and Baldwin is spot on, with each delivering their share of memorable one-liners (for example, Clark responding to Baldwin’s implied put-down of living in public housing “Are you being elitist about squatting again?”).

As a white middle-class man, I won’t pretend to be an expert on many of the topics addressed in this play.  But this piece does a wonderful job of letting an audience of any background connect with the struggles that these six characters deal with, especially with how director Tracy Bourne is able to get the cast to interact with and react to each other.  It shows the importance of optimism and believing in each other, but also the importance of holding people accountable for their actions.  It gives some strong examples of couples (whether siblings or romantic) who can have a healthy dialogue about things where they may not agree on the best course of action for getting to the same goal.  It provides an interesting way of showing how there can, in society’s eyes, be a “right” and a “wrong” way to be an African American, and you might not even know which is “right” and which is “wrong”.  And, it’ll crack you up, and leave you feeling a bit “magenta” (if you know, you know – but trust me, it is good to feel magenta… I think).