Review: CRUMBS FROM THE TABLE OF JOY Comes To Moving Life At Lyric Stage Boston

Teenagers, with all the related emotional tumult that those years in a person’s life often involve, are depicted in too many plays, musicals, and movies to remember – but that’s fine, because they’re not all worth remembering.

With her 1995 memory play, “Crumbs from the Table of Joy” – being given a touching, thought-provoking, and warmly funny production by Lyric Stage Boston through February 2 – two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Lynn Nottage (“Ruined,” “Sweat”), however, has created an unforgettable teenage character at the heart of an impactful family drama.

Played with depth, intelligence, and quiet presence by the gifted Madison Margaret Clark, Ernestine Crump not only provides a great measure of the play’s heart, she also narrates it. Much of the story, set in the 1950s, unfolds through her eyes, and when we meet her, she has already seen a lot in her young life, including the death of her mother and the impact of that sad event on her father, Godfrey Crump (a powerfully moving Dominic Carter), and her younger sister Ermina Crump (a wonderfully expressive Catia).

In his grief, Godfrey has relocated his family from the Jim Crow South to a predominantly black neighborhood in Brooklyn hoping for a fresh start as the trio each struggle to absorb the passing, and navigate through its unmooring impact on them as individuals and family.

For the girls that means focusing on the future – including Ernestine’s upcoming high-school graduation – and also finding both entertainment and escape at the movies, where Joan Crawford, Jennifer Jones, and other big-screen idols of the time capture their wide-eyed attention and give them brief respite from their own lives. Clark and Catia are immensely charming, even joyous, in these moments.

In New York, the family is joined by the late mother’s sister, Lily Ann Green (a spirited and winningly self-confident Thomika Marie Bridwell). From the moment she makes her splashy arrival, it is clear that Communist-leaning Aunt Lily is not there to go unnoticed. Indeed, her worldliness and verve breathe light and life into the dark shadows that sometimes envelop the family. For the girls, it is like having a movie star among them, and for their father, a reminder of earlier, less heavy times.

The light that is really pulling Godfrey in, however, comes from his growing interest in religion and the teachings of Father Divine, an advocate for racial integration and a leader in Black community building. When Godfrey brings home a new wife, Gerte Schulte, a white German woman, the tentative balance of his home is once again upset, with Hitler mentions entering the ether and Lilly Ann’s romantic interest in Godfrey stymied.

Throughout every upheaval, Nottage keeps hope firmly alive in Ernestine, best symbolized by her painstaking work on a beautiful graduation dress she is making, based on a pattern selected by her late mother and incorporating some antique lace provided by her enterprising, ever-loyal and loving sister. The emotion of these scenes, enhanced by the knowledge that the 17-year-old will be the first in her family to graduate from high school, is inspiring to behold.

Director Tasia A. Jones gives the production a deliberate pacing that leaves just enough air for the scenes to shift smoothly and the actors to move the story along, through its various moods, in a fully naturalistic manner.

The production takes place on Cristina Todesco’s set – a tidy but timeworn working-class living room with well-chosen set pieces, along with props by Lauren Corcuera, including a radio that anchors the modest parlor. Mikayla Reid’s costumes – including Ermina and Ernestine’s saddle shoes, ankle socks, and floral-print cotton dresses – suit the characters and period, with the pantsuit worn by the Lily Ann character supporting an important plot point in style. Eduardo Ramirez’s lighting design contributes much, while Aubrey Dube’s sound design is on point throughout.

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