Perri Gaffney and Stephanie Berry take us through amazing life stories that are by turns humorous and harrowing in a pair of dazzling one-woman performances.
Gaffney, in The Resurrection of Alice, explores the world of a young Southern black girl who finds herself married off at 15 to an older man who has always befriended the family and helped them with jobs, gifts and money.
The marriage isn’t her choice, but she becomes the older man’s wife anyway because of the fear of what would happen to her family if she were to leave.
Gaffney makes lightning-fast changes between characters and mood and across time. She can scamper around the stage like a 5-year-old girl or hobble around like her older husband.
But Alice triumphs in the end.
It’s a hard act for Berry to follow, but Berry takes the intensity up more than a few notches in her riveting depiction of The Sheneequa Chronicles: The Making of a Black Woman.
Sheneequa grows up in Harlem in the 1960s and goes through generational clashes, the awakening of her sexuality and the black power movement, along with degradation and humiliation.
Much of the performance explores the meaning of being a black woman in a white country, and trying to live up to white standards of beauty.
Sheneequa confronts the self-hatred implied by constantly trying to be what she’s not, but ultimately comes to terms with her identity and forges a spiritual connection with her African ancestors.
Both plays are for mature audiences.
■ Wesley Young can be reached at 727-7369 or at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
■ The Resurrection of Alice and The Sheneequa Chronicles: The Making of a Black Woman will be performed on a double bill today with shows at 3 p.m. and 8 p.m. at the RJR Black Box Theatre at Reynolds High School, 301N. Hawthorne Road. Tickets are $37.