A House Full of Flies

Set in a small town in Georgia across two turbulent eras, 1937 and the early 1990s, “A House Full of Flies” weaves a haunting narrative of misunderstanding, delusion, deceit, and ego–fueled by religious dogma and racist mythology– that have heartbreaking consequences.

At the heart of the story is Savannah Holster, a Black American Christian woman who is a widow. She lives by her wits and presents her grown children as siblings, possibly to obscure her age. She is emotionally scarred by racist humiliations her family suffered in her childhood. From her kitchen table, she runs a faith-based healing practice, finding meaning and control in her strict religiosity. Her fraught relationship with her daughter, Deirdre, simmers with unresolved tension. She shares her home with her adult son, named Prayer, who is devoted to his controlling mother and defends their home fiercely.

When Savannah becomes involved with her lawyer, a rising white conservative politician named Jackson Vance, her world begins to unravel. Her adult daughter Deirdre, while seeking help with a legal matter of her own, inadvertently reveals to Vance that Savannah is her mother. That realization shatters Vance’s ego, triggering a night of confrontation that ends in tragedy. In the aftermath, visions, guilt, and grief descend upon Savannah in the form of a prophetic dream that warns of doom for her young grandson. When that vision comes true it is devastating, but through it all, the bonds of kinship remain strong and hope endures. Even as shadows gather, the light of faith and fierce maternal love refuses to go out.

The play is resonant with the folklore, atmosphere and dialect of 20th century central Georgia. The flies referred to in the title are, symbolically (and literally), evils. Playwright Gissendanner explains, “When somebody has sent a spell, it could be manifested by flies and this is one of Savannah’s deep beliefs.” The spells symbolize the collective anxieties weighing on southern Black women of her generation.