Would it be inexcusably insensitive to describe a play about the horrors of slavery as charming? No doubt, but with her latest work, Sally & Tom, Suzan-Lori Parks – in top form, empathy and wit working at full tilt – sets the tone. She weaves a captivating double tale while whomping us with the details of one of the most egregious examples of hypocrisy in U.S. history, perpetrated by the primary author of the Declaration of Independence.
The story of Thomas Jefferson and a slave (his slave), Sarah “Sally” Hemings, has been out in the open for several decades now: After centuries of speculation, DNA testing in 1998 established incontrovertibly that Jefferson fathered at least one of her children, most likely all six (including some born during his presidency). The offspring became, as dictated by law, his property.
Parks lobs a number of less widely known details into her clever schemata. An example (reserved for late in the game): When Jefferson started up with Hemings, he’d been a widower for six years. His late wife was her white half-sister.
[Read Bob Verini’s ★★★★☆ review here.]
Parks pries open the past with a parallel script set in the present. Historical footnotes surface as a contemporary theatre company thrashes out the final draft of a play about the egregiously imbalanced arrangement between the pair. (With no record remaining of Heming’s side of the story, it can’t very well be called an affair or even a relationship.)
Parks knows how to “put sugar on the vitamins,” to echo the words of a company member urging a compromise as to authenticity. Who doesn’t enjoy a bit of backstage intrigue? Parks has given us two dramas in one, comparable – but laden with infinitely greater gravitas – to Noises Off.
The show opens with a formal minuet led by Jefferson as embodied by Gabriel Ebert (if ever a profile was meant to be incised on a coin, it’s his). The statesman extends an elegant hand to Sally (lambent Sheria Irving), and we’re off and running – with a stage picture that will resurface, less sanguinely, at play’s end.
“And scene” – to use the actorly lingo that will pepper the troupe’s ensuing scenes. Because this was but a rehearsal, a few performances shy of opening night. The actors express some dissent over the effectiveness of the sugary denouement, before giving in. “There are no bad ideas,” they recite robotically. “Guess what?” replies the author, Luce (Irving in her contemporary guise). “Yes there are.”
Back and forth we go, century-hopping as author and company strive for a more truthful rendering. The facts that unfold are horrific, including (the reveal is buried late in the script) Heming’s age when she first caught the statesman’s eye. She was looking after his two daughters (Kate Nowlan as a dim, aspiring bluestocking; Sunwee Chomet, an imp) while the family was posted to Paris on a diplomatic mission in 1878. Legally, Hemings was free there, France having abolished slavery four years earlier – but how could she survive were she to strike out on her own? The carrot that Jefferson extended – freedom for her and her children – never materialized during his lifetime.
The Jefferson we get to see is a paragon of egotistical two-facedness, and his modern-day counterpart, director/actor Mike (Ebert, in his alternate guise), is no prize either.
All eight company members shine in their sixteen-or-so roles, particularly Kristolyn Lloyd as Sally’s sister Mary, who’s threatened with being “leased out” – most likely separated from her family – when Jefferson, jumping on the opportunity to serve as the nation’s first secretary of state, decides to downsize the workforce (reportedly some 600 strong) required to keep his Monticello estate a showplace, or at minimum solvent. And guess what inspired the mansion’s landmark dome? Parks, even when being silly, is nothing if not ingenious.
His human property cast to the winds, the president-to-be sets off without so much as a backward glance at the wreckage left in his wake. It remains to us, centuries later, to assess the ongoing damage.
Director Steve H. Broadmax III keeps the action bubbling, the parallel story lines clear and swift. Set designer Riccardo Hernández even manages to endow the boxy Martinson stage with a bit of mystery and depth. Partway through, a pentimento emerges from a splotchy, black-and-white background wash of … what? Foliage? Dirt? Blood?
The story of Sally and Tom will haunt you – as it should.
Sally & Tom opened April 16, 2024, at the Public Theater and runs through May 26. Tickets and information: publictheater.org
