As a play, Peaches left little to the imagination in the way of the emotionally ravishing experience of slavery. With quick wit and easy language, Progress Theatre expressed plantation life for a modern society steeped in the seeming benefits of contemporary capitalist America.
Without missing a beat, Peaches fuses gospel, field songs and pure attitude. The audience is introduced to the character Peaches as a young woman in a blossoming love affair with a fellow slave under the sordid conditions of a southern plantation. For youthful Peaches, her plantation love Thad Guntharpe is a lifeline to her future and a physical manifestation of her dreams. Before the audience's eyes, the bashful girl morphs into a complex woman with a full range of emotions. And just as viewers settled into the nuances of life for a black slave woman on the plantation, a deep cry sounds from the cavernous backs and strong bellys of the cast, thrusting us forward to a different era, different music and a different Peaches.
As a play, Peaches left little to the imagination in the way of the emotionally ravishing experience of slavery. With quick wit and easy language, Progress Theatre expressed plantation life for a modern society steeped in the seeming benefits of contemporary capitalist America.
Peaches struggles with the guilt of the blues and the conviction of Christianity in voices that Baptists, 7-Day Adventists and Pentecostals all know. Throughout the religious era of Peaches' life, the actors had the audience swaying in perfect time just the way folk do in rickety, worn wooden pews as their jolting movements came together in a vivid rainbow dream.
Playwright and Director, Cristal Truscott played Peaches so perfectly and the part was so expertly crafted, it is hard to imagine another pulling such a byzantine character by the horns and displaying such plebian deftness all while singing out in voices scratch that like Mary and rattle like Patti.
Peaches possess the familiarity of Caribbean roots theater and the refinement of Broadway; and can attract audiences outfitted in door-knocker earrings and Air Max™ sneakers as well as mink stoles and Italian leather pumps. It is rare to experience theater that cross that many bridges and set so many precedents!
Undoubtedly, the cast delivered an absolutely electrifying message in a charged performance. The play was thoroughly unique and honestly prototypical in its uncanny fusion of song, dance, historical acumen and successful translation of the black female psychological experience in America.
© T.I. Williams
