In the Blood

In the Blood – Red Tape Theater

In the Blood is a loose adaptation of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter by Suzan-Lori Parks. It premiered in New York in 1999. Like the novel, the play focuses on a woman named Hester who is punished by a hypocritical society for bearing children out of wedlock.

A common thread of all the characters that Hester meets – her doctor, her caseworker, her children’s fathers – is that they all believe they know what is Best for her. Moreover, as a precondition of their help, their empathy, or even acknowledging Hester as a person is that she be perfect. She must make the correct decision at every turn. She must take any job offered and excel in it. She must perform gratitude for the help properly. She must show the world she understands her five children were mistakes, but never show that understanding to her children. Failure to do all this and more means they will wash their hands of her as deserving her fate. More galling is that they make those demands in the same breath as demanding forgiveness for their own shortcomings and the ways they have exploited Hester. The fact that they are married or rich or have a profession as opposed to merely a ‘job’ qualifies them for understanding and second chances they would never think to extend to her.

This story is a powerful insight into how society casually condescends to poor people, and is a reminder of how much closer we remain to Hawthorne’s Puritans than we might like to think. My problem with the show is that the misery it portrays is unrelieved almost throughout the show’s two hour run time. Hester is dismissed and exploited at every turn by literally everyone she knows. I’m not saying something as broad as ‘comic relief’ was necessary, but there needed to be some moment of happiness, or barring that, calm for Hester, if only to allow the audience to regroup. I think one of the least understood aspects of poverty is how grinding it is, what it is like to live without a moment’s peace or security and how that wears down the very things you need to be able to escape that poverty. I appreciate the show for not shying away from that, but the people who most need to see this are, I think, the most likely to shut down in the face of its unbroken suffering. I don’t believe the depiction is inauthentic or needlessly sensationalized; I do think that the constant intensity makes it harder to absorb.

That said, whatever issues I have with the script, I have nothing but praise for the cast. Jyreika Guest as Hester is simply amazing. She has to balance always being at the center of the action even though her character is constrained by her circumstances to only ever be able to react to that action. She holds the audience’s attention and we feel the outrage on her behalf that she cannot express for herself. The rest of the cast also do some great work with some complicated material. The remaining five cast members pull double duty as Hester’s children and the various adults she encounters. Each does great work with the frustrating double standards they apply to Hester.

Ultimately, this play is very interesting and extremely well acted. Its message is important, but I do think the tone occasionally gets in the way of that message rather than supporting it. This show is very much worth your time; just know that it will ask a lot of you.

Recommended

Presented January 25-February 23 by Red Tape Theatre, 4546 N. Western Ave., Chicago.

Tickets are available in person at the box office by visiting redtapetheatre.org.

Additional information about this and other area productions can be found at www.theatreinchicago.com.