If one word could describe what Is God Is was about, it’s “trauma.”
“[It’s] the darkest thing I’ve ever seen,” one woman said as she left the National Arts Centre (NAC’s) Babs Asper Theatre on Feb. 11, strutting up the aisle to the closing song, Nina Simone’s “Li’l Liza Jane.”
Is God Is powerfully examines how trauma exacerbates itself through generations while destroying everything in its path. The play generates a needed and overdue conversation about trauma and how it impacts Black individuals, past and present.
The award-winning play isn’t without controversy. After announcing a “Black Out Night” limiting attendance on Feb. 17 to Black-identifying individuals, public backlash labelled the event as “absolutely racist.” The NAC then tweeted that no one will be turned away from any of the performances.
On Saturday, people of various ethnicities attended the event. As a Black man, I still felt welcomed.
There’s a definite need for Black theatregoers to enjoy shows featuring all-Black casts, directed by Black directors and scripted by Black playwrights. However, that need doesn’t necessarily mean the audience must be all Black—a viewpoint I only formed after observing standing ovations from audience members of all different races, indicating the play’s message was clear to all.
I noticed interracial couples attending the event, and I wondered how they would individually interpret the show. Would the Black person feel a sense of familiarity to the trauma depicted in the play? Would the white person understand the levels of generational trauma that impact members of the Black kaleidoscope? Or would they see it only for its surface-level content and reaffirm oppressive stereotypes? Perhaps their views would be switched, contrasted, or similar.
Is God Is centres the lives of two Black, southern-American twin sisters, Anaia and Racine, played by JD Leslie and Oyin Oladejo, respectively. Their onstage dynamic is an unbreakable sisterhood. From the opening moments when they take turns mending each other’s scars to saying lines in perfect unison, it felt as if Leslie and Oladejo really were sisters.
Yet, the two actresses gave distinguishing individual performances, with Leslie’s portrayal of the shy and timid Anaia, alongside Oladejo as the bold and fearless Racine.
Despite their differences, the twins share the same backstory. They are plagued with severe burn scars after their father, who they call Him, played by Tyrone Benskin, burned their house down when they were young.
While the twins have little recollection of the incident, they venture down a dark path to, as their dying mother requests, “make their daddy dead.”
Directed by Mumbi Tindyebwa Otu and written by Aleshea Harris, the play’s serious storyline is underlined with a dark sense of comedy. I often found myself unwittingly laughing at someone’s pain or at a moment of reconciliation.
Moments of laughter are bookended with murders accompanied by blood-curdling screams and the added sound effects echoing throughout the theatre which made scenes of violence shocking and believable.
Technical elements added layers of depth to the narrative. The lighting and projections, designed by Raha Javanfar and Laura Warren, respectively, made use of warm colours to reinforce trauma as a recurring theme. Flames projected onto the back of the set and warm-coloured lights paired well with the play’s dark subject matter.
Anaia grapples with the idea of murder. She’s not a killer, she tells her sister. Throughout the play, the twins question each other: do they kill their father, bashing Him over the head with their self-made weapon—the rock in her long sock—or do they vary from their familial habits and let her father live?
The intentional hesitation in Leslie’s voice, her jittering arms and her rocking body: The audience didn’t need her to say it—we all felt her internal dilemma. Half of me wanted her to kill Him, ending things once and for all. But my optimistic side hoped for a happy ending, one where her father can prove he’s changed and all the bloodshed can serve as a lesson learned.
The play closes with a line that will stay with me forever: “If you weren’t pregnant I would cut your eyes out and feed them to you.”
The line, as disturbing as it is for words alone, shakes my core when accompanied by the show’s signature sound—similar to something straight out of a horror film.
It’s the compiled elements of the play that hammer home the severity of the story. Everything is extreme. Nothing is simply a normal feeling.
The Black experience certainly does not reach this extreme for everyone—rather, it is a diverse kaleidoscope of experiences, good and bad.
Is God Is will continue its run at the NAC until Feb. 19. Tickets are available on the NAC website.
Featured image provided by the NAC.
