Chelle is an artist who grew up in Baltimore in a slum across the street from a park where she just learned that they have removed the statue of Robert E. Lee. Specializing in installation art, she applies for and receives a grant to create something to replace the Confederate Civil War monument. In time, she buys the house in which her family had rented an apartment, but she has trouble coming up with an idea for the park. The pedestal (also called plinth) on which Lee stood, remains empty.
Chelle is a very complex person, constantly trying to come to grips with not only the world around her, but of the history for Black people that preceded her. What is freedom, she asks herself and her brother- it is not the same as happiness she exclaims at one point. He is around as he prepares for the big Juneteenth celebration in the park. And as she struggles for years to come up with an installation to replace the statue that was removed, she is trying to come to grips with the difference between a monument and a memorial. The foundation wants something now!
When she does create a work of Barack Obama that no one recognizes, it is soon torn down by locals- this in a neighborhood that is beginning to change via gentrification. The question raised is who judges the quality of her work. Is it just the White establishment?
She even struggles to remodel her family home and hires a decorator, but do the decorator’s ideas match her own? It is another struggle. She toys with images of Lee and of the Confederate flag.
There are talks with her brother who accuses her of not being Black enough and that she’s spent too much time with Caucasians. I found it fascinating when I learned that the word cowhand was altered to cowboy after the Civil War when Blacks and Latinos rose to the position.
There is so much power beautifully expressed in this most thoughtful play by R. Eric Thomas. But I had problems with it- not the writing but the directing and the overacting. In the first act, Chelle and her brother Willard (Danny Wilfred) are constantly shouting at each other. On two occasions, they are standing upstage and just loudly arguing while in profile. I wish they could show us more how they felt instead of telling us. And often, Wilson portrays the stereotypical representation of a gay man with affect. it took away from his own significant ideas and words.
And Thalis (Kishia Nixon), the decorator, is also going for the comedy most of the time too as if there needed to be a laugh on every third line. It felt like a tv sitcom. Just too much silliness. Still, Jennifer Nikki Kidwell was a powerful force as Chelle as she lets us know about so much of her feelings, her challenges, and of her art.
“Glitter in the Glass” is a powerfully profound piece that needs to let it speak to us with less bravado.
“Glitter in the Glass”” by R. Eric Thomas at Theatre Exile, 1340 S. 13th St., Philadelphia, PA 19147, 215-218-4022, boxoffice@theatreexile.org Extended thru June 22, 2025
Philadelphia Theater Reviews by Frank Burd 