In his new play, “Good Bones,” playwright James Ijames, who won a Pulitzer in 2022 for “Fat Ham,” examines gentrification, property and community.
Aisha, played by Susan Kelechi Watson, moved back to her blighted hometown with her husband, Travis, for an exciting job opportunity to revitalize her neighborhood as the point person for a plan to build a large, fancy new sports complex right in the center. The couple buys a beautiful old home and begins renovating it.
However, things get tense when Aisha realizes that her contractor, Earl, also grew up in the area and has strong feelings about the new sports complex, which will displace residents. The two argue as Aisha confronts the ghosts of her past and looks to expand her family with Travis.
The show is on now at the Public Theater, and it’s directed by Saheem Ali, who also directed “Fat Ham.” Watson, Ijames and Ali talked to WNYC’s Alison Stewart on a recent episode of “All Of It.” Below is an edited version of their conversation.
Alison Stewart: James, you mentioned that you wanted to write a play about gentrification, but not about white folks. What changes in the conversation when you talk about gentrification once you take white folks out of the equation?
James Ijames: I think Black people talk about questions of class, space, and place a little bit differently. I think there’s a frankness to the conversation. We know how to get in between the ribs in a way, to say the thing that’s really going to try to get to the heart of the person you’re talking to.
I just wanted to see what would happen if the people involved in the conversation had some shared value, had some shared history, and it had so much complexity to the conversations around class and gentrification when it’s just us talking about it.
Saheem, when you heard that, how did you approach his vision?
Saheem Ali: Reading James’ play is always a treat because he writes so differently each time. The world was evocative in a completely different sense of theatricality. I had this family, and we had this ghost, and we had to figure out how to tell the story that was about gentrification, but about history and legacy, and how it manifested in ways that were supernatural and intangible alongside the very real notions of capitalism and commerce and upward mobility.
Susan, what did you find in the script that was going to be challenging for you as an actor?
Susan Kelechi Watson: The biggest challenge I probably faced was seeing it from Aisha’s point of view because I definitely have very strong opinions about gentrification. I’m probably siding more with Earl in my real life. Seeing it that way, I had to remind myself of people I’ve had conversations with within the community who saw it Aisha’s way, who saw it as a chance to advance the community and for things to change in a positive way.
I think that was an interesting challenge because, like we mentioned at the beginning, usually this is such a Black-and-white conversation, but to talk about people who are directly affected by it became really interesting on another level.
Saheem, when you enter the theater, you realize that it’s set up like a construction site. There’s big plastic that hangs down, the dust barrier for a renovation, but it’s a fourth wall a little bit for us as the audience. Where did that idea come from?
Ali: Well, Maruti Evans is the set designer. He’s fantastic. Every play I’ve done of James’, and Maruti has been the designer for. It’s part of our continuing collaboration in realizing James’ worlds in three dimensions. We circled around the plastic because it’s such a beautiful manifestation of something simple that’s practical in the space that you need it, but it created these different portals through which we could gradually reveal the kitchen. As time passes, you see more and more of the kitchen. You get the illusion of actually witnessing the unfurling of the space, even though it’s been there the entire time.
It’s funny, though, when that kitchen gets revealed, New Yorkers were like, “Ooh.”
Ali: Very impressive. You have the height. You have so much storage. I mean, a dream.
Watson: It’s a dream.
James, tell us about the house.
Ijames: Well, the house in my initial imagination was one of these squat row homes that are these mid-Atlantic staples. They’re in Philly, they’re in DC, they’re in Baltimore. We wanted this to be able to graft onto any city. We wanted the kitchen to look like the dream kitchen, like the ideal dream kitchen. I think there’s some point in one of the stage directions, I say it becomes all kitchens. It needs to just look like capital K kitchen. That’s all I really care about. It has these layers of history because of Earl’s relationship to the space when he was a kid.
It’s also a place where people gather. It’s just a really powerful space. It’s also going to be more interesting to watch that be developed over time than a bedroom. Like, a bathroom would be great, but then there’s not a lot of hanging out in the bathroom. The kitchen is the best room for that.
James, what do you hope people have conversations about gentrification after seeing the show? They go have coffee. They have a glass of wine. What do you want them to talk about?
Ijames: I hope they talk about how they show up in their community. I think sometimes people take advantage because they live in close proximity to somebody that they got community. Actually, community is a work. It’s actually a thing you have to cultivate. It’s a thing you have to tend to. I hope it makes people want to go meet people in their community that they wouldn’t typically go and spend time with and cross paths with. One of the things that could save us – because I think New Yorkers know this – you’re used to living in these intensely multicultural environments. You’re just in a rush with a lot of people from a lot of different places. New York has always felt like a place where it teaches the world that this is really possible anywhere. You just have to go out and do the work of building community for yourself.
How about you, Susan?
Watson: Wow. I hope it opens up a fresh conversation. I think that what is it to speak about gentrification from the points of view of two people in a community that have been there pre-gentrification and understand what life was like before that. I do hope it shows the complexity of what it means to want to see better for your neighborhood and what that means to people.
I think one of the things that makes the most major impact for Aisha is realizing that she’s not in the world alone, no matter what she feels like. She grew up in that: there is family, there are friends, there’s new community. There’s always someone in her life trying to be in that place.
Saheem, anything you want to add?
Ali: Yes, that everything that James and Susan has said, and I think, in particular for me, I want an audience to experience some reflection and think about the ways in which they might be culpable. Like, Aisha could have moved through life not understanding that she needed to reconsider her actions because of the trauma that she suffered in her childhood. We’re all going about, in some way, maybe acting on some trauma that we’re not aware of and potentially doing more harm than good. I hope, as with great theater, it just makes you empathetic and to think about your own actions relative to what you’ve experienced.
Good Bones is at The Public Theater through Sunday, Oct. 27.