Crossroads Theatre Co. revives Lynn Nottage’s evocative family drama ‘Crumbs from the Table of Joy’

SEAN VARGA

Enih Agwe in “Crumbs From the Table of Joy,” which The Crossroads Theatre Company is now presenting at The New Brunswick Performing Arts Center.

It is 1950, in Brooklyn. And Ernestine Crump — an African-American teenager whose family has recently moved there, from Pensacola, Florida, and who is soon to graduate high school — is looking for a role model.

On the one hand, there is her recently widowed father, Godfrey, who is still grieving but who has been uplifted by the sermons and the sayings of the charismatic Father Divine — and has, in fact, relocated his family in order to be closer to the great man.

Then there is Ernestine’s sassy, sophisticated, sharp-dressing Aunt Lily (her late mother’s sister), who lives in Harlem (“For us colored folk that is the equivalent of reaching the promised land,” Ernestine says), and believes in social change, and Communism.

Then there are the movie stars whom Ernestine discovers on the screen of a local theater, and whom she dreams about joining the ranks of, someday. She can “act white,” she brags, heartbreakingly.

“Crumbs From the Table of Joy,” which premiered Off-Broadway in 1995, was the first play written by Lynn Nottage, who has gone on to win Pulitzer Prizes for Drama for “Ruined” (2009) and “Sweat” (2017). I don’t think anyone would argue that it is on a par with her later work, but it has a richness to it that makes it well worth revisiting. It’s a delicate balancing act, but Nottage manages to evoke the warmth of a family whose members are determined to help each other make it through hard times, without overdoing the nostalgia.

Most important, Nottage, who in her early 30s when this play premiered, paints a vivid portrait of Ernestine’s adolescence — her big dreams and nagging insecurities, and her gradual awakening to a deeper understanding of how the world works.

SEAN VARGA

Cloteal L. Horne, left, and Enih Agwe in “Crumbs From the Table of Joy.”

“Crumbs From the Table of Joy” is also very much, though, about a specific time in United States history — politically, socially and culturally. There are references to The Scottsboro Boys and McCarthyism and “Amos ‘n’ Andy” and Bette Davis, and Lily is a big Charlie Parker fan. (Inspired by Lily, Ernestine writes a high school paper on “The Colored Worker in the United States,” leading to trouble at work for Godfrey, who is suspected of being a Communist.) I should mention, too, that Father Divine was a real person — and very popular, and influential, in the early ’50s.

Nataki Garrett directs, and the cast of five includes Enih Agwe as Ernestine; Gabriyèl Barlatier as her more confident and assertive younger sister, Ermina; Jamil A.C. Mangan as Godfrey; Cloteal L. Horne as Lily; and Lee Alexandra Harrington as Gerte, the White, German immigrant whom Godfrey meets one day on the subway and then marries almost immediately — to the surprise of everyone else.

Especially Lily. She has never married (“Since the only thing ever willed for me was marriage, I choose not to do it,” she states, defiantly). And while she seems to live a carefree life, there is a part of her that, maybe, is ready to settle down. She and Godfrey had dated, briefly, before he started dating and then married her sister. And she clearly regards him, now, as a prospective partner, even though his earnest religiosity seems to be at odds with everything about her. (She frowns, for instance, when he tells her there is no alcohol in the house.)

Once Gerte enters the family, it is inevitable that she and Lily will butt heads. And they do, quite vehemently.

Nottage evokes Ernestine’s inner life with some scenes — in which things go really well for Ernestine — that seem real, at first, but then turn out to be fantasy sequences. The play is set almost entirely in the family’s Brooklyn apartment, and the mannequin in it, on which Ernestine labors over the high school graduation dress that she is making for herself, looms as a powerful symbol of her ambitions. (Her graduating is a big deal; Godfrey beams with pride as he contemplates the idea of a daughter of his being a high school graduate.)

SEAN VARGA

Jamil A.C. Mangan and Lee Alexandra Harrington in “Crumbs From the Table of Joy.”

Ernestine is not the most obvious kind of character to build a play around. The brash Lily is the focus of every scene she is in; even the outspoken, flirtatious Ermina overshadows her older sister, at times. But Nottage makes her approach pay off — and gives us an indication of her ambition as a playwright, even at this early point of her career — with a poetic and uplifting epilogue in which Ernestine fills us in on what the future holds for her, and all the other characters. She also shares an important thing she has learned: that “we all escape somewhere, and find comfort sometimes in things we don’t understand.”

In other words, sometimes crumbs from the table of joy are all you need.

The Crossroads Theatre Company will present “Crumbs From the Table of Joy” at The New Brunswick Performing Arts Center, through Nov. 23. Visit crossroadstheatrecompany.org.

____________________________