Paul Minx’s play, set in Indiana in 1965 during the summer of the civil rights marches, is full of good liberal intentions: it shows the problems faced by an African American couple seeking to escape the clutches of a dysfunctional white family. But, while the piece is domestically specific, it left me wishing that Mr Minx viewed a momentous summer through a wider historical lens.
The focus is on Andre, a deeply religious gardener desperate to get to Alabama both to see his institutionalised daughter and to take part in the civil rights protests. But he is checked by several factors. One is that he is mentor to Ivy, the tenacious 15-year-old daughter of the Price family, who is on the eve of entering a prestigious Bible-speaking contest. Andre and his militant partner, Grace, an aspiring writer, also can’t leave until they are paid their back wages by Mr Price, an angry redneck with an alcoholic wife.
Minx writes well about the pressures faced by black employees in a typical midwest family: the clinging Ivy weaves sexual fantasies about Andre yet both he and Grace are treated as little more than slaves expected to drink water from a separate cup. But, although the play is about the hunger for freedom, it tells us little about the earth-shaking events taking place in the deep south. The baby-doll Ivy and her lush mum might also have wandered in from a play by Tennessee Williams. Fortunately Sarah Berger’s taut production yields exemplary performances from Cornelius Macarthy and Krissi Bohn as the exploited workers and from Michael Brandon, Imogen Stubbs and Lydea Perkins as the white family from hell.
