Asia Nicole Jackson, David Everett Moore, and Anna Marie Sharpe Photo by Kevin Berne

As a single father, Godfrey struggles with the loss of his wife and with the challenges of raising two daughters while working the graveyard shift at a bakery. Godfrey–in a wonderfully heartfelt portals by Moore–seems especially perplexed by the challenges life presents. For guidance, he turns to Father Divine, a well-known preacher of the time who fancied he was God himself. Father Divine's portrait hangs on the upstage wall (terrific set design by Randy Wong-Westbrooke), and Godfrey is forever coming up with questions he plans to ask Father Divine when he comes to New York for a rally of his Peace Mission Movement. He also reminds his daughters to live by Father Divine's three Vs: virtue, victory and virginity.

For the girls, however, Father Divine "stands between us and pleasure." While Godfrey plugs along at his dead-end job, Ernestine, 17 and on the verge of graduating from high school, imagines a very different sort of life for herself. While she fantasizes about a career in the movies, it seems clear this is truly only a fantasy for her, a way to escape the strictures of her home life. Ernestine is the grounded center of this play, sometimes narrating the action, often to hilarious results when a scene will play out in a positive way, only to have Ernestine tell us that's not how it actually went and the scene replays as it really happened.

As act one plays out, two very different women enter the family's life. First comes the girls' maternal Aunt Lily (Asia Nicole Jackson), a card-carrying communist who lives in Harlem and revels in a life very different from what Godfrey expects from his daughters. Lily smokes, drinks heavily, and isn't afraid to strut her stuff, especially sartorially. Ernestine remarks that Lily is the "first colored woman dressed like a white lady." For her part, Lily claims her "subversive mission is to out-dress them all!" The second is Gerte (Carrie Paff), a German immigrant Godfrey meets on the subway in a chance encounter that blossoms into something that results in the rather surprising close of act one.

Crumbs from the Table of Joy is one of Nottage's earlier plays, but its vitality, expressive language, rich character development, and sense of story presage later works such as Intimate Apparel, Sweat and Clyde's. With the amazing script as a starting point, director Elizabeth Carter has the play rocketing along, using Kevin E. Myrick's lighting cues to clearly indicate transitions between scenes and to shift between Ernestine's narrative commentary to us and her interactions with her family.

Even more impressive than Carter's direction are the performances from her cast, who are nothing short of brilliant. Every moment finds them fully focused and in perfect sync with their scene partners. When Jamella Cross's Ermina hears that Father Divine has told her father her name in the Peace Mission community is to be "Devout Mary," her face screws up in disgust in a way that is nothing short of hysterical. When Gerte meets Godfrey on the subway and offers her a cookie, she turns away from him and rapidly stuffs it in her mouth like a raccoon devouring a tidbit it is afraid may be stolen away. When Aunt Lily comes home from a bender, it seems she is weaving as steadily as she can, and almost succeeding.

As Ernestine, Anna Marie Sharpe carries the weight of the play on her shoulders, but she is so in tune with her character and so sure of Ernestine's confidence that the weight seems like no burden at all. Her timing is impeccable, and her confident approach to the role is mirrored every time Ernestine stands up for herself. David Everett Moore is just as skilled, showing us a character who is lost in grief, hanging onto his family and his beliefs by the slenderest of threads. His mouth seems to be either in a worried frown or, less often, a broad smile–almost never in a neutral gesture. Godfrey seems beat down, but when he reflects back to a happier past, Moore's entire body seems to lose the stiff carriage he uses as armor.

With this terrific ensemble under stellar direction, this is a must-see for anyone who loves the sort of drama that lets you be a fly on the wall for a family's fascinating–if troubled–life experiences.

Crumbs from the Table of Joy runs through May 25, 2025, at Aurora Theatre Company, 2081 Addison Street, Berkeley CA. Performances are Tuesdays through Fridays at 7:00 p.m., Saturdays at 8:00 p.m., and Sundays at 2:00 p.m. Saturday matinees at 2:00pm on May 10, 17, and 24. Tickets are $38-$68, with reduced prices for high school and college students. For tickets and information, please visit www.auroratheatre.org or call 510-843-4822.