Review: CHICKEN & BISCUITS at Portland Playhouse

Families, amirite? They're the people who know you the best, and sometimes the least. They love you the most, and they hurt you the most. They may punch you in the nose, but if someone else tries they'll be there to protect you. And where better to experience the whole spectrum of family dynamics than at a funeral!

In Douglas Lyons' comedy CHICKEN & BISCUITS, now running at Portland Playhouse, the Jenkins family is gathering for the funeral of their patriarch and pastor, Bernard, or, as the family calls him, B. Both of those roles will now fall to Reginald (Donterrius Ruff), who's married to B's daughter Baneatta (Valerie Yvette Peterson). When the play opens, we witness Baneatta praying to God to help her make it through the day without her family driving her crazy.

This, as it turns out, is an impossible request. First, Baneatta is rattled by a mysterious phone call, and then her sister Beverly (Brittney Caldwell) shows up in clothes that Baneatta finds wholly inappropriate for a funeral. Then her son Kenny (Chidube Egbo) arrives with his boyfriend, Logan (Austin Comfort), whose name Baneatta stubbornly refuses to remember. Rounding out the family, and the only people not already on Baneatta's bad side, are her daughter Simone (Treasure Lunan) and niece La'Trice (Ashlee Radney). Throughout the funeral and the meal after (B's favorite, chicken and biscuits) the family teases, taunts, and tortures one another. But they also love and protect one another, because that's what families do.

CHICKEN & BISCUITS is mostly just funny, and that's when it's most effective. Despite the verbal (and sometimes physical) jabs being thrown around, there are real feelings at play here, and the humor brings them out much better than the occasional scenes when the show wanders into too-serious territory, which can come off as moralizing. For the most part, director Cycerli Ash-Barlocker keeps things light by having the cast play up the camp.

And there is no one better at playing up the camp than Brittney Caldwell. As Beverly, the wild and crazy sister who also has a huge heart, Caldwell sets a very high bar and is the undisputed star of this show. Meanwhile, Treasure Lunan's character, Simone, is Beverly's polar opposite - reserved, sad, looking as if she'd like to just disappear into the wallpaper - but Lunan's stage presence is always magnetic. And, unexpectedly in this mostly boisterous comedy, they made me cry.

CHICKEN & BISCUITS the play is like chicken and biscuits the meal: comfort food. If you overthink it, you'll probably ruin it. So, just laugh and enjoy.

CHICKEN & BISCUITS runs through October 30. More details and tickets here.

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