Chicago - "Black Cypress Bayou"

Regional Reviews: Chicago

Black Cypress Bayou

Definition Theatre
Review by Kyle A. Thomas

Also see Kelly's review of Dear Evan Hansen and Christine's review of Hamnet

RjW Mays, Rita Wicks, and Michelle Renee Bester
Photo by Joe Mazza, Brave Lux

There is a magic about the bayou. Ancient trees draped in Spanish moss enrobe an ominous waterscape blanketed by fog and mosquitos. History is alive and present in the bayou. Its watery confines provide a feeling of refuge before dissipating into an inescapable dread which hangs in the humid air. Indeed, for many Black Americans, the bayou is a space that envelops with a sense of both healing and harm, where the ancestors could find respite from oppression amongst the dangers of its untamed environs. It is a place with an otherworldly electricity capable of activating a portal between our world and the ethereally mythic beyond, compressing time into a moment of boundless existence.

In Black Cypress Bayou, now in production at Definition Theatre, playwright Kristen Adele Calhoun brings this liminality of the bayou to effect for the women of the Manifold family, situating them in a space between generational trauma and the interminable grief of injustice. Ericka Ratcliff's direction dexterously guides us through the transformative magic of Calhoun's setting, wrapping the mysterious murder of East Texas's richest business owner within a story about a mother and her daughters navigating the perils of their present by confronting the regrets of their pasts.

The familial drama draws from the many Black and Indigenous people who found escape in the bayou. But the Manifold women cannot escape the ghastly implications of a white man's body found in their possession. Sisters LadyBird Manifold and RaeMeeka Manifold-Baler scramble to help their mother, Vernita Manifold, who has discovered the head of a tyrannical local business owner sitting on her porch. With a macabre humor, the women attempt to make sense of the situation and what to do next while dredging up their old family squabbles. Fortunately, a visitor–seemingly sent from the bayou itself–appears from the mists to guide them through their plight by navigating buried truths of the past. Undaunted, the visitor, Taysha Hunter, relentlessly reveals the connection between a time when Vernita found refuge with a man of the Caddo tribe and the recent death of the man whose business brought inescapable oppression for her daughters. Through their discoveries, LadyBird and RaeMeeka find closer connection with their mother and a greater empathy for the trials endured by their ancestors in the bayou. Vernita, though she struggles to forgive herself for the regrets she carries, eventually meets with a solace that emerges from the embrace of her daughters.

Black Cypress Bayou highlights the stellar abilities of Black women–their voices, presence, and vision–as framed by a theatrical magic borrowed from the bayou. Its power lies in dialogue that conjures the iconographic symbolism of Black families in the American South, and characters who carry the weight of that history. At Definition Theatre, Michelle Renee Bester, Rita Wicks, and RjW Mays as the women of the Manifold family build a family portrait that is saturated in the complications of their history but ready to burst with the underlying love and ride-or-die spirit shared between themselves. Mays is especially infectious as the indefatigable Vernita. Seamlessly shifting from authoritative mother to supportive confidant to beset elder, Mays pulls us into Vernita's journey and holds us in her turmoil and grief before releasing us through a ritual letting go. And Jyreika Guest as Taysha Hunter provides a singular counterbalance to the circle of Manifold women. Both a threat and their salvation, Guest emerges from the liminal space with an enigmatic energy that, at first, cloaks her connection to them before melting into the depths of family pain they all come to share together.

Black Cypress Bayou runs through March 15, 2026, at Definition Theatre, 1160 E 55th St., Chicago IL. Performances Thursday-Saturday at 7:30pm and Sunday at 3:00pm. For tickets and information, please visit www.definitiontheatre.org.