Last week for ‘Rachel’ and ‘Las Meninas’ in Fort Greene
Lost history of black lives at New Brooklyn Theatre, Irondale Center
Two gripping plays written by African-American women, “Rachel” and “Las Meninas,” will be wrapping up Aug. 29 at the New Brooklyn Theatre, in the Irondale Center in Fort Greene.
Both works push buttons, portray the wreckage produced by unstifled power, and reclaim the lost histories of black lives.
The moving “Rachel,” Angelina Weld Grimké’s lynching drama written in 1916, was the first play ever staged by an black woman playwright.
Over the course of the production Rachel, played by the talented Santoya Fields, transforms from an upbeat and carefree young sunbeam to a broken soul afraid of bringing little brown and black children into an unjust world. As her life breaks into pieces, so does the set, its sections pushed apart while two adorable, tiny twin girls play patty cake, indifferent to the fragmentation taking place around them.