I’m unsure if I’ve ever been as moved, devastated and simultaneously entertained as when I watched Front Porch Arts Collective and SpeakEasy Stage Company’s production of Jordan E. Cooper’s “Ain’t No Mo’” (through Feb. 8).
The play starts with a spirited sermon delivered by Pastor Freeman behind a kente-striped podium. It’s 2008, and Barack Obama has been elected president of the United States. The pastor, an excellent De’Lon Grant, tells church mothers donning bejeweled hats — cooling themselves with paper fans — that on account of the election, things are changing. He is giving a sermonic eulogy of sorts for the funeral of Brother Righttocomplain. Now that Obama is president, there will be no more “discrimination, holleration or hateration,” he explains.
At that time, news stories reported of a post-racial America, and hope bloomed for many. It’s a salient historic moment through which to enter Cooper’s tale, the premise of which is that the government has offered Black folks of the diaspora a one-way ticket to Africa. Flights leave from gate 1619, which is managed by a drag queen named Peaches (a stellar Grant Evan). If, however, a Black person chooses to stay, they will be transmogrified into a privileged white male and their “ability to empathize will become languorous.”
Cooper’s “Ain’t No Mo” premiered at The Public Theater in New York in 2019 and later moved to Broadway’s Belasco Theatre in 2022. In an interview, Cooper said he started writing the play “as a cathartic way to deal with the onslaught of police killings of unarmed Black folks.”
The Front Porch’s Dawn E. Simmons takes good care with Cooper’s narrative. Her masterful direction, Cooper’s sharp writing, a fantastic ensemble and an outstanding creative team make this biting but balanced missive singular.
In the show, Grant effortlessly embodies a charismatic preacher, a black velvet and gold-blazer-wearing TV show host, and a well-to-do Nigerian man residing in the U.S. He’s got a lot of range onstage. He stood out as a doting son in SpeakEasy’s “Pru Payne,” last year and as a gay mortgage broker trying to become a father in SpeakEasy’s “The Case for the Existence of God.” Dru Sky Berrian, Kiera Prusmack, Schanaya Barrows, and MaConnia Chesser all get to show off their acting chops. The talented cast members play churchgoers, reality stars, mothers-to-be, wives and more. However, Chesser’s chilling scene as the character Black who wants to live unencumbered for once, still haunts.
There’s also a montage of video news reports, Kehinde Wiley-styled portrait projections, and digital signage for African-American Airlines and its African destinations to immerse audiences into the story.
Through a series of vignettes, different characters must make their choice. It would prove imprudent to decide their destiny without considering the government-sanctioned atrocities and injustices — from chattel slavery to medical experiments, murder and redlining — against them. Cooper doesn’t dig into all those topics because the script is grappling with even more — from navigating the world as a Black person to angling for proximity to whiteness and the perceived safety some believe it brings. But the fear of the establishment with its litany of harms is summed up simply when one character expresses mistrust over the ticket to the motherland.
Thankfully, the messages, both blatant and subtle, exist alongside humor in “Ain’t No Mo.’” The cast’s physical comedy skills are top-notch and provide moments of respite. Somehow, Cooper created a story that offers up multiple experiences of what it means to be Black. It also focuses on the hope for a brighter future and the terror that fostering that hope brings.
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Evan’s delightfully rendered Peaches, a key character charged with ushering Africa-bound Black folk through this gate of no return — seemingly a nod to the uncertainty our enslaved ancestors likely felt when passing through the Door of No Return awaiting to board ships to unknown destinations — also makes a choice with disastrous consequences.
Cooper’s narrative, at times, feels like an embrace and, at others, an angry (justifiably so) stance, but it’s droll enough to keep viewers from dwelling too long in difficult spaces. Still, when the lights came up in the house, the story spurred me to shed a few tears, debrief over dinner, and hug a few strangers from the diaspora.
The Front Porch Arts Collective and SpeakEasy Stage Company’s production of “Ain’t No Mo’” shows through Feb. 8.