'The Blood Quilt' review — a patchwork play about sisterhood, history, and sewing
Read our review of The Blood Quilt off Broadway, a play written by Pulitzer Prize winner Katori Hall and produced by Lincoln Center Theater through December.
Some people have photographs, others have letters, and still others have videos. But the Jernigan sisters document their family history – its joys, trials, love, pain, and everything in between – in stitches in their quilting circle. Their intricate yet humble textiles drape Adam Rigg's set, patched together in shapes of stars and squares, angular and round, making the Jernigan home feel full with the family’s story.
The texture of these quilts does a good deal of work to give Katori Hall’s new play The Blood Quilt a bit of shape, given that its basic frame presents a familiar story. The four sisters – Clementine (Crystal Dickinson), Gio (Adrienne C. Moore), Amber (Lauren E. Banks), and Cassan (Susan Kelechi Watson) with her daughter Zambia (Mirirai) —reconnect after their mother’s death, which reopens their old wounds. Career-minded Amber has been absent from the sewing circle for years and couldn’t attend the funeral, Clementine has maintained the rickety house that is seven years behind on property taxes, Gio is a cop who likes to drink, and Cassan’s occupied as a single parent. But really, Rigg’s set is an arena for these Black women to unravel their histories, one another, and themselves.
The Blood Quilt’s preoccupation with the role that quilting plays in the lives of Black women as spaces of community, connection, and family is fascinating. Hall’s dialogue is meaty and lived-in, and the cast all imbue their lines with rich character, so the lives of these women feel fully embodied — maybe with the exception of Cassan, which is frustrating given that the play’s final turn involves her.
But strangely, Hall’s play lacks focus, as if it’s juggling too many ideas to go into depth on any one. There are themes of familial discord, buried secrets, deep resentment, historical ownership, selling out, gentrification, lack of parental care, and the tension between tradition and modernity. All these subjects are interesting, but the characters feel like they’re dancing on the surface.
It's entertaining to watch the dynamics play out, but The Blood Quilt can leave one wishing for more intensity from the characters, for the play to feel like less of a patchwork.
The Blood Quilt summary
After the death of their mother, four sisters reconnect at their annual quilting circle gathering at their childhood home on the coast of Georgia in 2015. Amber, who has pursued her life and career alone, comes to confront the way the rest of her family feels about their mother’s death, while Clementine tries to dig the family out of the financial hole their mother left them in. All the while, the youngest member, Cassan’s daughter Zambia, learns how crucial quilting has been to their family lineage.
What to expect at The Blood Quilt
Hall has presented a variation of the family drama and the prodigal child drama, sewn around the concept of the quilt as a way Black women in particular process their lives and experiences. Hall provides her cast a wealth of material for her characters to explore their relationships to one another, not only as sisters but as Black women whose lives have turned out differently than they expected. Hall asks whether history can keep them together as they tear themselves apart.
What audiences are saying about The Blood Quilt
The Blood Quilt currently has a 72% audience approval rating on the review aggregator Show-Score.
- “Ver[y] strong acting by entire cast.” - Show-Score user MDS59
- “There is an actual ritual that serves as the climax for this new play. But there's another more foundational ritual at play here: That of the American family drama. Four sisters (and a niece) with loaded relationships and unfinished business meet following their mother's death and the fireworks explode. While it treads familiar ground and at times feels a little repetitive, this crackling text by playwright Katori Hall is delivered by a fantastic ensemble and is served by great staging. It's a great piece of writing and is well worth your time if you have the patience to spend almost 3 hours with this dysfunctional group of women.” - Show-Score user GreatAvi
- “Pros- Great set, evocative yet simple, true to the location of the play (island off GA coast). Incorporation of water, esp projections of ebb and flow of real coastline = powerful. Quilt motif on wood flooring also great. Lovely quilts. Cons- Volume, comprehension, dialect, diction, projection, length, chemistry, writing. [...] Currently feels one 'big' revelation after another. Katori Halls' heavy poeticism and metaphorical writing style, evocative initially, gets v. tedious v. quickly. By the end, I found myself numb, apathetic, exhausted, beaten + mentally checked out.” - Show-score user amorvincitomnia
Read more audience reviews of The Blood Quilt on Show-Score.
Who should see The Blood Quilt
- Fans of Katori Hall’s Pulitzer Prize-winning playwriting should absolutely check out how she takes on the history of Black women and textiles in the United States.
- See this show for the acting: The cast is exceptional, and you feel that there is a tangible chemistry between them.
- See the show if you want to be transported to Georgia: The set design by Adam Riggs, garnished with reeds and tall grass, as well projections from Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew and sound from Palmer Heffran do an excellent job of completing the Jernigans' world.
Learn more about The Blood Quilt
Hall has crafted an ambitious tapestry of Black womanhood in the south, and there is enough material for several plays, which at times is its primary flaw. But the rich quality of her dialogue and the cast’s full embrace of the family’s dynamics makes it worth checking out The Blood Quilt's intricate stitching.
Photo credit: The Blood Quilt off Broadway. (Photos by Julieta Cervantes)
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