Back in 2019, young playwright and performer Jordan E. Cooper deservedly made a major splash at the Public Theater with Ain’t No Mo’, his high-flying collection of short, sharply funny, satirical comedies regarding the Black American experience, which later landed him on Broadway. Cooper now returns to the Public as the author and leading player of Oh Happy Day!
Opening on Wednesday following its 2024 premiere at Baltimore Center Stage, Oh Happy Day! turns out to be, oh well, not such a happy event for theatergoers due to its overabundance of content and an underwhelming resolution. The show looks to be none too pleasant a time for Cooper either, who struggles with a strenuous leading role.
Although Oh Happy Day! is purported to be a new work, its contemporary Deep South story about a young Black man’s estrangement from his Leviticus-spouting father seems like the familiar crux for a drama that’s been swirling inside Cooper’s head long before he crafted Ain’t No Mo’. Father and son conflicts go back forever in time, often with great dramatic results, so perhaps Cooper has experimented with such themes during his earlier phases as a developing writer and this terribly cluttered effort is the final result.
Essentially, Cooper’s two-act drama sees Keyshawn (Cooper) unexpectedly return home to rural Mississippi after a dozen years away. Keyshawn hopes to reconcile with his stern dad Lewis (Brian D. Coats) in the recent wake of a scandalous sex incident involving their church patriarch. Keyshawn’s fond, highly-strung sister Niecy (Tamika Lawrence) and her tween son Kevin (Donovan Louis Bazemore) witness the prodigal’s awkward homecoming.
There’s more. The realism of a blazing argument during a smoky barbecue on a patio suddenly goes magical as young Kevin gives reverberating voice to God speaking to Keyshawn, who wonders, “Am I really dead? Like I’m not just high?”
Such magic is scarcely surprising, because the play commences with an exuberant musical welcome socked over by The Divines (Tiffany Mann, Sheléa Melody McDonald and Latrice Pace). They are a trio of goddesses rocking glam couture who cheerfully identify as the “doulas of the afterlife” charged with escorting the newly dead onwards. An opening round of gunshots and their participation confirm Keyshawn’s recent demise, which is why he gets a redemptive chance for a do-over with his dad. The Divines will materialize at key points, rendering several pleasing gospel and Motown-style numbers, often in lovely harmony.
There’s more. God informs Keyshawn he can achieve a sweet eternal home only by rescuing his family from a massive flood about to engulf their town. Soon a desperate Keyshawn is trying to convince his doubting loved ones to go for a boat ride, only he can’t locate a boat. So Keyshawn starts to tear up the house to build one with his bare hands.
There’s much more. Further exchanges with God and The Divines. Sorrowful backstories about two murders and whodunit, of a mama lost to drugs, lingering father-son resentments, of sexual abuse, times in prison, gay escorting and more, as well as matters of a higher spiritual power. Details will be revealed to viewers returning for the second act of a patchwork drama that yields an existential scene of anguish set in a dark limbo and even a be-happy-in-the-hereafter conclusion.
Several plays appear to be crammed into one lumpy work, which is bolstered by upbeat songs composed by Grammy Award-winner Donald Lawrence, although not sufficiently to elevate the drama into significance. Viewers accustomed to modern Black church plays likely will be more forgiving of the drama’s excesses rather than of its central figure’s undeserved redemption.
Staunchly supported by the solid performances of Coats, Lawrence, Bazemore and the musical trio, a husky-voiced Cooper looks taxed by the demands of the highly emotional role he has created for himself. Stevie Walker-Webb, the artistic director of Baltimore Center Stage who guided the original Ain’t No Mo’ so smartly, stages the Public’s production of Oh Happy Day! at a steady pace that helps to smooth over the stitching in the text. Scenic designer Luciana Stecconi contributes the faded blue shingled façade of a shotgun-style house that later transforms into a heavenly place. Other visuals look good. The sound design by Taylor J. Williams neatly boosts the actors’ God-like voices. Music director Daniel Rudin leads a snappy seven-member band behind the scenes.
Meanwhile the Biblical story of Noah gets totally lost in the flood of everything else happening in Oh Happy Day!, but let’s not encourage Cooper to devote any more time to improving it. Instead, let’s look forward to the next plays Cooper will compose now that he’s finally done with this one.
Oh Happy Day! opened October 15, 2025, at the Public Theater and runs through November 2. Tickets and information: publictheater.org
