P
Perhaps she was passed over, she muses, because unlike Rasheed (Al’Jaleel
McGhee), who got the job, she’s “not black enough.” This problematic
sentiment, combined with her insistence that she doesn’t date “black guys”
and her habit of wearing a wig of long, straight, light brown hair, sets
Margaret up as the self-hater in the play’s subtitle.
It’s a shame, because Nwandu’s writing shows moments of engrossing nuance,
the sort that might make Margaret’s journey wholly convincing. But Nwandu
limits that nuance to Sylvia, the only character who’s fully dimensional
(and brought to remarkable life by Linda Bright Clay). Sylvia is
curmudgeon, sage, do-nothing, and firecracker all in one—a stark contrast
to the other characters, who tend to operate at single speeds. Her brief
monologue recounting the day of Margaret’s birth brings a certain
decades-long cultural history to vivid life.
