In Pennsylvania, USA, the same place in entirely different times hosts a mother and daughter who unknowingly will soon have to reconcile with the land’s ugly past and its impact on their own filial history
It’s the 1830s in Pennsylvania, USA. There is a cholera outbreak. The graves of Black churches are being robbed in the name of science. It is also some time in the 2020s, also in Pennsylvania. A Summer camp is underway, in a space that feels the eerie premonitions of past wrongs.
Back in the 1830s, Mother (Sydney Sainté) and her daughter Charity (Christie Fewry) keep vigil at the grave of their recently passed husband/father. While at first they seem to simply be paying respects at a surprisingly late hour, the real reason behind their presence by this grave quickly becomes clear. Students and employees from the nearby medical college are known to rob the graves of the city’s Black population in order to practice medical procedures as well as investigate the impact of various diseases. The outbreak of cholera in the region and its resultant increase in the number of deaths by disease has created an epidemic of a different kind, one that leaves the graves of Black folks emptied.
In the 2020s, Modern-day Mother (also Sydney Sainté) and Modern-day Charity (also Christie Fewry) are working at a Summer camp. It’s not an easy job by any measure, which they lament with their co-worker John (Jack Gouldbourne). Cuffy (Romeo Mika) their supervisor, is unfairly criticised by John, and tensions begin to rise within the group. Soon, John mentions the camp’s mysterious connection to a Church graveyard, and the spiritual heaviness that seems to be activated by the night. As Mother and Charity open themselves up to exploring the mysterious energy emitted by the camp at night, the whispers of ancestry begin to speak. The past becomes the present as lives once lived make themselves seen and history seems to demand a kind of reconciliation, if not for crimes committed, for them to at least be recognized.
Written by Nia Akilah Robinson, The Great Privation (How to flip ten cents into a dollar) is an ambitious play that takes on a heady topic with creative care and great sense of structure. The heart-breaking themes are given brevity with Robinson’s witty humour. The excellent performances by the cast are heightened by Kalungi Ssebandeke’s wise direction. Ssebandeke’s keen use of space cultivated a piece that gave Theatre503’s small theatre the energy of an ever-expansive universe.
The Great Privation (How to flip ten cents into a dollar) asks us what of our ancestors do we carry with us, particularly if we are not afforded the privilege of knowing our own history. How much of our ancestral pain do unknowingly hold, and how does one reconcile this pain if its history is unaccounted for?