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This Bitter Earth – Online via Theaterworks, Hartford

Writer: Harrison David Rivers

Director: David Mendizábal

Reviewer: Jamie Rosler

Love conquers all, or at least makes the difficulties more bearable, in Harrison David Rivers’ This Bitter Earth. It’s a moving exploration of the complications of one couple set against the complications of American society at large, deftly directed by David Mendizábal. Optimism meets heartbreak, activism meets academia, and poetry (both literal and metaphorical) undergirds the journey from start to finish.

Shifting forwards and backwards in time between March 2012 and December 2015, as well as across the country from New York City to St. Paul, Minnesota and back, Jesse (Damian Thompson) and Neil (TomView Holcomb) find and support love, growth and humanity in each other. Meeting at a protest in the wake of Trayvon Martin’s murder, Neil is a white man who finds himself with a bullhorn in hand and a crowd urging him on to speak. What comes to his mind and out of his mouth is the poetry of a little recognized Black writer who is, coincidentally, the focus of Jesse’s graduate thesis. A relationship blooms, filled with both stereotypes and their inherent contradictions.

Neil comes from great familial wealth and is a fervent activist for racial justice. He has trouble understanding how Jesse, a young Black man, doesn’t take a more obviously engaged stand on issues and at protests, while Jesse would argue that his academic work and the fact that he simply lives his life the way he wants to is protest enough against a system that would go out of its way to keep him down.

Rivers’ script makes great use of theatrical conventions to shape and tell this meaningful story. Direct addresses to the audience and well-scripted scene changes that are gracefully executed through sound, set, and lighting design (Frederick Kennedy, Riw Rakkulchon and Christina Watanabe, respectively), along with effective edits for the video presentation of a live performance, are all beautifully woven together under the leadership of Mendizábal. The script is notable on its own merit, as well, probing and proposing ideas around balance, our connection to the earth, Black feminism’s influence on the modern politics of civil rights in the LGBTQ+ community, and the inherent violence of white supremacy.

This Bitter Earth is a piece work that stays with you, exemplifying some of the best elements of live theatre and art in general.

Runs until 20 March 2022 | Photo Credit: David Samuel

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Bittersweet

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