Local Black Playwright’s New Work Features All Black Cast and Director

Review by Martha Heimberg

Is love at first sight really an unconscious recognition of somebody you loved in an earlier life? Think about it. Better still, go see a fascinating play based on the idea of love reincarnate.

Award-winning playwright Erin Malone Turner’s work has been featured in theaters throughout Dallas and Fort Worth. Her latest play,  for the rest of our lives, is premiering at Undermain Theatre, as the winner of the Katherine Owens/Undermain Fund for New Work. Playful and insightful, the two-hander features charismatic, energetic Zariyah Perry as the eternal Woman and handsome, quietly passionate Nathaniel Wooley II as the Man who keeps showing up in her life, eon after eon. Throughout the play, the two actors generate a natural chemistry that has us cheering for their dramatic touch-and-go romance.

When we first meet this ageless couple, she’s a princess isolated in a castle tower by her cruel father because she’s not perfect. She passes the time making paintings of a world of sunlight she imagines exists outside. “I don’t know how much time is left in this kingdom, in this palace, in this life,” she tells the only person who cares.  He’s the lowly servant who’s loved her forever from afar, and now plays songs for her on “a flute made from the wing of a swan.”  Playwright Turner says the play was inspired by learning that prehistoric woodwinds were, in fact, made from wing bones of birds. And this play does take flight.

Director vickie washington carries us swiftly and gracefully through their several lifetimes. The lovers meet again when he is the son of a prominent baker in colonial times, but he does poorly in school because he can’t read very well. He loves to collect lost keys, and imagine what they might unlock. She’s the feisty maid who knows her place, but runs the whole household. They’re clearly attracted to each other, but what can come of this?

We move right up through modern times when these star-crossed lovers once more meet in an artifact-strewn lab where she’s the brilliant archeologist and he’s her ever-eager assistant. Will the third time be a charm? See the clever twist of fate at the end for yourself!

Despite the occasional idiomatic awkwardness of the lovers speaking love’s old sweet song over the ages —  shifting from you and me to thou and thy —  these two soul mates are totally charming in all their guises.

Kudos to the smooth production team. Set designer Luke Atkison and lighting designer Aaron Johansen the huge support columns in Undermain’s intimate basement theater to thoughtful use throughout. Costume designer Ava Roberts-Kamaria has the most fun with the colonial era outfits. And Claudia Jenkins Martinez has the wit to send us out to intermission to the pounding rhythm of Percy Sledge’s “When a Man Loves a Woman.” Oh yeah.

The show runs through November 22 at Undermain Theatre, 3200 Main St. For times and tickets, call 214-747-5515 or check www.Undermain.org