I saw last night's performance. The full cast was present and the show went off without a hitch, so I assume whatever caused both Saturday performances to be cancelled was a fluke.
Those who've seen previous work by Jackie Sibblies Drury will not be surprised by the style and tone of the piece, which is very discursive, not strictly narrative and often deliberately anachronistic. The play's theme is the role of women (and especially women of color) as caregivers throughout Western history, refracted through the story of Mary Seacole, a Jamaican nurse and entrepreneur who worked the battlefield of the Crimean War. Sibblies Drury suggests, in a way, that all caregivers are descendants of Mary -- hence the plurality of the title.
The script includes some trenchant humor and sharp observations, though at times it tries too hard to be disorienting. Sometimes its messages are conveyed with a touch too much bluntness. The production is very well directed by Lileana Blain-Cruz and strongly acted by the cast of six. Quincy Tyler Bernstine is particularly outstanding as Mary.
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe."
-John Guare, Landscape of the Body
