Greta Oglesby and Regina Marie Williams Photo by Dan Norman

The Guthrie has mounted the play, whose full title (I'll only mention it once) is The Nacirema Society Requests the Honor of Your Presence at a Celebration of Their First One Hundred Years, impeccably directed by Valerie Curtis-Newton in a howlingly funny production. It is part comedy of manners, part cross-generational comedy, part romantic comedy, and part social satire. Its historic baselines give the hearty laughter roaring across the aisle a sense of consequence, for we laugh not only at Cleage's effervescent writing, but at the irony of its context within that place and time in history.

Nacirema is "American" spelled backwards. It was coined by American anthropologists wanting to look more objectively at their own culture, first appearing in 1956 in a satirical anthropological paper called "Body Rituals Among the Nacirema." Cleage has used the word as the name of a fictitious legacy society of prominent African America families in Montgomery, Alabama, going back to the Civil War.

The exclusivity and propriety of the Nacirema Society is represented by Grace DuBose Dunbar and Catherine Adams Green, who trace their families' membership back to its founding. These two pillars of the society are portrayed by Greta Oglesby (as Mrs. Dunbar) and Regina Marie Williams (as Mrs. Green). If the play were nothing more than a series of conversations between these two exquisite actors, immersed in their delicious characters as they finalize plans for the upcoming Nacirema Cotillion, which will commemorate the society's centennial, it would be reason enough to rush to the Guthrie for tickets.

Grace and Catherine, now both widows, are as close–and as quarrelsome–as sisters. They have long harbored the hope, or for Catherine, the expectation, that her grandson, Bobby (Darick Mosley), and Grace's granddaughter, Gracie (Nubia Monks), will marry, thus carrying the bloodline of the two august families into a new generation. Gracie has no interest in marriage. She wants desperately to become a writer and, to that end, attends college in New York City, though her grandmother expects her to go to Fisk, the historically Black university in Nashville that all Nacirema's young people attend.

As for Bobby, now in medical school (it appears that many of the Nacirema men have been physicians), he is deeply in love with a fellow student with whom he went to Greenwood, Mississippi last year to volunteer on the voter registration drive. However, owing to the closeness between Gracie and Bobby's families, they grew up feeling like brother and sister, and their ease with one another is taken as a sign by their meddling grandmothers that theirs is a match made in heaven.

Layered upon this, a voice from the past appears: Alpha Campbell Jackson ( Aimee K. Bryant), the daughter of Lillie Campbell, who worked as the Dunbar's maid for forty years up until her death. Alpha has come down from Harlem with urgent news for Grace Dunbar–news that is bound to stir things up in a most unwanted way. Her timing is terrible, with the cotillion days away, as well as the arrival of Janet Morgan (Joy Dolo), a well-known Black reporter for the New York Times who usually covers the civil rights movement, but has come to do a story about the Nacirema Society and its centennial cotillion. For Grace and Catherine, this is an opportunity to impress Blacks in the Northeast with the level of sophistication enjoyed by their Montgomery brethren, and they don't want Alpha's business gumming that up. Meanwhile, would-be writer Gracie is star-struck by the presence of one of her idols, Janet Morgan, as a house guest in her home.

Also embroiled in the mayhem is Marie Dunbar (Dedra D. Woods), Grace's daughter-in-law and Gracie's mother; Alpha's daughter Lillie (Essence Renae), a student and activist who is appalled by her mother's scheme; and Jessie (Charla Marie Bailey), the Dunbar's maid who replaced Lillie. The entire cast is phenomenal, with Monks, Bryant, and Renae rising to the vaulted level of performances given by Williams and Oglesby, and the others–Dolo, Mosley, Woods, and Bailey only a half step behind.

Jessie, the maid, never says a word. She always appears exactly when needed, taking coats from arriving guests and returning said coats when they leave, dusting lamps, watering plants, ready with food or drink the moment it is desired, and so on. While she is treated like a non-entity, she sees and hears everything that goes on–a few choice facial expressions and gestures let us know that she pays attention. We can surmise that the same was true of her predecessor Lillie, whose daughter is now poised to upset the household.

The production is not only sprightly staged and brilliantly acted, but it also looks amazing. Takeshi Kata's stage design places all three of the play's settings on the thrust stage at the same time, with Mary Louise Geiger's lighting design making transitions from one to another quite seamless. Holding center court is the Dunbar home's gracious living room, decorated in a manner that attests to old money. A royal blue tufted sofa and club chair provide its anchor, and an elegant white staircase curving upwards toward the home's second story creates an alcoved entry. Halfway up that staircase, behind the living room, is the library, with its substantial desk and a wall of bookshelves arranged around an oversized portrait of the late Dr. Dunbar. In front of the Dunbar living room, on the tip of the thrust stage, is the humble kitchen in what had been Lillie Campbell's house, which remains the property of her family, and where Alpha, come from Harlem, and Lillie, home from college, are both staying.

Then there are the lavish costumes designs by Trevor Bowen. Right at the start we see Gracie being fitted in her archly fussy white cotillion dress. Grace Dunbar and Catherine Green show off an array of fashionable outfits, and the gowns they wear for a simple dinner party draw entrance applause. Not only Bowen, but the Guthrie's costume shop team have outdone themselves. By the way, I say simple dinner party in that it is being held in the Dunbar home with the meal prepared by Jessie, but there is nothing simple about what transpires among the assembled guests. I also tip my hat to sound designer/composer Larry D. Fowler for the musical selections during transitions and at prime moments during the play, pivoting between old standards and the new sound of Motown.

Pearl Cleage is a prolific writer, with nine published novels, three books apiece of essays and poetry, and a long string of plays. Her first was Puppet Play in 1981, but she achieved widespread recognition with Flying West in 1992. The Nacirema Society is a relatively recent work, premiering in 2013 as a co-commission from the Alabama Shakespeare Festival and the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta. It packs in so much that one might fear of it being overstuffed, but–at least in the hands of director Curtis-Newton, this cast and this creative team–it is a banquet that is easily digested, leaving nothing but the lingering taste of being superbly entertained and intellectually prodded in one fell swoop. Bravos all around!

The Nacirema Society runs through May 25, 2025, at Guthrie Theater, Wurtele Thrust Stage, 618 South 2nd Street, Minneapolis MN. For tickets and information, please call 612-377-2224 or visit GuthrieTheater.org.

Playwright: Pearl Cleage; Director: Valerie Curtis-Newton; Scenic Design: Takeshi Kata; Costume Design: Trevor Bowen; Lighting Design: Mary Louise Geiger; Sound Design/Composer: Larry D. Fowler; Intimacy: Annie Enneking; Vocal Coach: Keely Wolter; Resident Dramaturg: Carla Steen; Resident Casting Director: Jennifer Liestman; NYC Casting Consultant: McCorkle Casting, Ltd.; Assistant Director: Vanessa Brooke Agnes; Stage Manager: Lori Lundquist; Assistant Stage Manager: Kathryn Sam Houkom.

Cast: Charla Marie Bailey (Jessie), Aimee K. Bryant (Alpha Campbell Jackson), Joy Dolo (Janet Logan), Nubia Monks (Gracie Dunbar), Darrick Mosley (Bobby Green), Greta Oglesby (Grace DuBose Dunbar), Essence Renae (Lillie Campbell Jackson), Regina Marie Williams (Catherine Adams Green), Dedra D. Woods (Marie Dunbar).