Jack Presents Melisa Tien's BEST LIFE
Best Life runs October 21 – November 6, 2021, at JACK.
By: A.A. Cristi
JACK presents Best Life by New Dramatist resident playwright Melisa Tien. Directed by Susanna Jaramillo, Best Life is an alarming dark comedy that centers on two women trying to bridge their racial and economic differences. Best Life runs October 21 - November 6, 2021, at JACK (20 Putnam Ave, Brooklyn) with opening night on October 23. Tickets are now on sale at jackny.org.
Best Life, which was originally scheduled to premiere March 21-April 5, 2020, is one of the first canceled productions to reopen following the pandemic. If you could turn back time, what would you do differently? In this absurdly funny and unsettling new play, Lourdes can rewind time-but only within the last five minutes. At a café, she meets Sheryl, a wealthy white woman with heartfelt yet deeply misguided intentions. As they talk, Lourdes keeps rewinding time in an attempt to have the 'right' conversation with Sheryl. Soon, the forces of social responsibility, public allyship, and private guilt creep their way into the exchange. "Best Life is my response to the differences in how progressive white people and progressive BIPOC view and talk about race," says playwright Melisa Tien. "The play's recursive structure reflects what, to me, feels like the nature of this country's conversations around racism, allyship, and how to be a 'good white person'. Particularly when complicated by class differences, these conversations can often feel like endless loops, and require superhuman effort, patience, and a willingness to face hard truths before meaningful progress can happen."
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