Mississippi Smiles

RunBoyRun Productions, Philadelphia, PA

Review by Charles Finley

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Domestic violence is horrible to witness. We know it immediately when we observe from outside; the verbal intimidation and physical violence are gut-wrenching. It should make us sick to see it.

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Kamillah Abdul-Malik’s Mississippi Smiles tells us the story of Mary, a longtime victim of spousal abuse who is once again wined and dined—this time by Paulina. It’s amusing to see Mary go through dealing with the issue of becoming physically and emotionally attracted to a woman, but the bones of her realization?/transition? are barely sketched out. It might be a whole play in itself to see her take this turn in her life journey.

 

But the play has other things to say and moves on. Mary, now seeing Paulina (“Paul”) finds herself once again a victim of physical and emotional abuse. She talks in hindsight about how she should have been alarmed at the first sign of impending physical violence, and from the outside, we wonder why she continued. “There were signs all around,” Mary tells us, “But you know love has a way of leading you blind.”

 

One thing leads to another and we as audience members want to reach out and stop her from walking deeper and deeper into this bad situation. Soon Mary finds herself trying to get pregnant again (this time by a surrogate friend of Paulina’s) and we wonder how she can’t see what she’s doing. It’s a hard play to witness, but Ms. Abdul-Malik is very clear about the picture she is drawing and she spares few niceties in Mary’s tragic journey.

 

This is Ms. Abdul-Malik’s first play; she is a spoken word artist and her play is both fearless and raw, but it could probably benefit from more development to smooth out the rough transitions and explore some more of the moments along the way. It’s a bold start for sure.