The Albans sisters have mixed feelings when it comes to the death of their father Lazare.
Middle sister Maude Lynn, a devout Christian, falls to the ground in tears when she realizes he’s going to hell for the sinful things he has done.
Youngest sister Odette is looking on the brighter side of things, saying that their dad never hit them and bought them almost anything they wanted.
Meanwhile eldest sister Agnes only remembers the unpleasant memories, saying Lazare treated them like “porcelain dolls with empty heads.” She’s more interested in thinking about their love lives and futures.
While their disagreements are realistic, the Albans sisters are fictional and the bit is part of a scene members of Detroit’s Plowshares Theatre Company were practicing earlier this month. The company, which is dedicated to highlighting Black actors and stories, will debut “The House That Will Not Stand” Thursday at The Carr Center. Written by playwright and screenwriter Marcus Gardley, the production tells the story of the Albans, a Creole family living in New Orleans in the early 1800s. Matriarch Beartrice is grieving the loss of Lazare and the end of their plaçage, the relationship between white men and women of color in antebellum New Orleans. Meanwhile, the French-owned Louisiana Territory will soon be owned by America due to the Louisiana Purchase, which threatens the freedom of Creoles.
Plowshares’ run of the play goes until June 16.
“In Louisiana, all of those Creoles lived under French rule, which meant that there was a whole system of rules and regulations that they lived by,” Plowshares Artistic Director Gary Anderson told BridgeDetroit. “They weren’t free, but they had more freedoms than enslaved Africans in the United States. So in this story, we have a family that’s realizing all those things are going to be taken away from them when the territory becomes U.S. property. And the mother is desperately trying to figure out how she can work all this in a short amount of time because the Americans are coming.”
Anderson saw “The House That Will Not Stand” in New York in 2018 when a friend was cast in the play and he fell in love with it, he said. The play has been performed across the world in places like Atlanta, Chicago, London and Ontario, Canada. In 2019, Gardley won an Obie Award (for Off-Broadway theaterfor playwriting.
“You have multiple aspects of freedom that’s being presented in the story and it’s all from the perspective of Black women, which we never really see stories focused on the concept of fighting for freedom,” Anderson said.
The director set to work on bringing the play to Detroit last year, as he and his team worked on auditions. Detroit actress Shelby Bradley plays Beartrice, while Shannon Dingle, Mycarra Whorton and Layla Lyles play her daughters Agnes, Maude Lynn and Odette. Rounding out the all-female cast is Madelyn Porter as Beartrice’s sister Marie Josephine and Zahirah Muhammad as the Albans’ servant Makeda.
Anderson said he knew he had found the perfect Beartrice when he saw Bradley’s audition.
“When I cast Shelby, I was confident that I had somebody who could play her (Beartrice’s) strength, steeliness, the cruelty as well as the level of compassion and vulnerability,” he said.
Bradley said even though her character is often mean to her daughters, she’s coming from a place of protectiveness and wanting the best lives for them. As part of being in a plaçage, Beartice was controlled by Lazare and doesn’t want the same thing to happen to Agnes, Odette and Maude Lynn.
“A lot of people can relate, of a mother who is very strict just trying to get her daughters not caught up into a system that she doesn’t think would be good for them,” Bradley said. “And you can see that sometimes in a mother who might be trying to get her kids out of poverty or gangs and they may be super strict on their kids trying to protect them. Even though she comes across as just an evil bitch, she has lived a life that she feels was oppressive and took a lot away from her and she’s committed to not having her daughters falling into that same kind of lifestyle.”
No matter how flawed Beartrice is, Bradley is excited for audiences to see Bradleyplay the character.
“I’m excited for folks to see that in spite of her dominant nature, this woman really was driven by love and protection for her daughters,” she said.
Bringing the Albans sisters to life
Dingle, 22 and Whorton, 27, have graced the stage several times as theater students at Wayne State University. But the things that attracted Dingle to “The House That Will Not Stand” was performing in a period piece and the relationships she has with her two sisters.
“I also have two sisters, so the relationships between all of us is something that I’m very familiar with,” Dingle said. “And it’s very intriguing because in my real life, I’m the middle sister and I’m playing the oldest sister.”
Meanwhile, Lyles, 19, liked that Black women are front and center in the production and for Whorton, playing a character that is totally different from her real self.
“I’m a lot more laid back than my character, who is very uptight and very religious,” Whorton said.
The women said the play also gave them a history lesson on Creole culture and the Louisiana Purchase.
“We don’t learn about it when we’re in high school or anything like that, so I had no idea what Creole was,” Dingle said. “I had no idea of the culture and how significant it was and truly how much it changed the way that people live.”
Whorton was surprised to hear the freedoms Creoles had over other Black people at the time.
“I’m so used to hearing around that time that Black women, Black men were in slavery. And in Louisiana, this was a safe space for you to be a lot more free than other places. And for me to hear that was so bizarre,” she said.
While “The House That Will Not Stand” addresses difficult topics, Anderson said there are themes within the play that are still relevant today, such as the fight for freedom and the Black struggle for equity.
And that’s especially true for Black women, he said.
“I hope (the audience) take from this play the strength, the resiliency and how difficult it’s been for Black women to achieve a sense of dignity and humanity in this world.”