The Light

C+

The program for Loy A. Webb’s drama at MCC Theater’s spiffy new home on W. 52nd Street specifies that the play is set on October 5, 2018. That is the day of the Senate’s cloture vote leading to the confirmation of Justice Kavanaugh the following day. The action takes place in real time that evening at the upscale Hyde Park condo of Genesis (Mandi Masden; Our Lady of Kibeho, The Piano Lesson), an attractive woman approaching 40 who is principal of a prestigious charter school for black students. Genesis is frazzled because one her white teachers stirred up a hornet’s nest by posting a pro-Kavanaugh message online. Rashad (McKinley Belcher III; The Royale), a hunky fireman who, with his mother’s help, is raising a 4-year-old daughter abandoned by her mother, arrives bearing two gifts to celebrate the second anniversary of their first date. The first gift is exactly what Genesis wanted, but the second gift, coveted tickets to a concert by a rock star she disapproves of, sets her off. Genesis takes a long time to admit the reasons for her antipathy to the rock star. One of Genesis’s gifts for Rashad raises a new issue late in the play. What started as a celebration becomes an extended argument over who has it worse, black men or black women. It resembles a mashup of themes underlying the Black Lives Matter and Me Too movements. Both Genesis and Rashad have incidents in their past that make it difficult to achieve mutual understanding. As the play turns didactic, the freshness and vitality take a hit, which is a shame because the beginning is so promising. The acting is very strong and the set by Kimie Nishikawa is sure to evoke real estate envy. Emilio Sosa’s (The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess) costumes are appropriate. Director Logan Vaughn (Black Flag, Love Letters to a Dictator) occasionally lets the pace lag, The result is a flawed but interesting play. Running time: one hour 45 minutes; no intermission.

Our Lady of Kibeho ***

Playwright Katori Hall’s residency at Signature Theatre resumes with this theatrically engrossing play based on actual events in Rwanda in the early 1980’s when three young women at a Catholic school claimed to have visions of Mary. As the play opens, Father Tuyishime (Owiso Odera),a young handsome priest and Sister Evangelique (Starla Benford), an older martinet nun in charge of the students — two stock characters who could be right out of John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt — are arguing about what to do with 17-year-old Alphonsine (Nneka Okafor), the first to claim to see the Virgin. The priest secretly hopes the apparitions are real while the nun wants to stamp out attention-seeking nonsense. When another student, Anathalie (Mandi Masden), begins to see the visions, Sister Evangelique enlists Marie-Claire (Joaquina Kalukango), the eldest student and a bit of a bully, to interfere should there be other apparitions. Marie-Claire too sees the Virgin in the gripping scene with gasp-inducing special effects that concludes the first act. When word gets out about the visions, the long absent Bishop Gahamanyi (Brent Jennings) shows up and threatens to close the school if the rumors are not contained. Eventually the Vatican sends Father Flavia (T. Ryder Smith) to investigate. The manner in which he tests the girls is barbaric. As the visions come to be accepted, there is much shifting of positions among those who at first belittled the visions and those who supported them. Some are motivated by crass economic considerations, others by faith. But few are able to accept the warning of a coming bloodbath the apparitions portend. In restricting herself to the immediate period of the visions, Hall does not supply much context for what happens. The audience is expected to know in advance about the tribal rivalries between Hutu and Tutsi and the massacres that took place in Rwanda a decade later. That narrowing of focus may rob the play of a bit of its import but not of its theatricality. Rachel Hauck’s modular set is attractive and efficient. Peter Nigrini’s evocative projections add much to the atmosphere. Greg Meeh and Paul Rubin create some marvelous effects. Emily Rebholz’s costumes are very good. Director Michael Greif keeps things moving. One word of caution: a walkway that bisects the theater between rows F and G is used for part of the action, particularly in the second act. If your seat is in Rows A-F, you either will miss some of the action or twist your neck trying not to. Running time: 2 hours 35 minutes including intermission.