Family Ties at Lifeline

Kimberly Dixon-Mayes’ new play Rabbits in Their Pockets ,now on view at the Lifeline Theatre, is a delicate excavation of the prickly landscape of sisterhood. Ash and Harley have returned to the house they grew up in to refurbish it and prepare to sell. Lakecia Harris portrays Ash, an aeronautical engineering genius who might be on the spectrum, who makes excellent money and wants to smart wire up the house to amplify Black Joy even as she keeps her sister out of debt. Her sister Harley is more of a fanciful people pleaser, played by Simmery Branch,and it is she who actually inherited the full title to this house of childhood memories and wants to sell it to fund her dream: an improv community center that promotes the original Black technology of Improvisation. Felisha McNeal portrays Inola, an interested buyer, a potential investor in the center and an elder as well as the embodiment of the trickster. Marcus D. Moore rounds out the cast as Jasper the comic relief, one of Harley's improv students and observer to the tangles of the sisters. There are delightful magical realism twists in the plot as the script trudges through a rehab- this play is a modern adaptation and reimagining of the Brer Rabbit Tales by Uncle Remus. Director Christophe Wayland leads this delightful cast in a dance of connection and conflict. Shokie Tseumah’s artful set manages to portray the old house filled with surprises, a coffee shop improv class within the confines of Lifeline intimate exposed brick box. 

Along the way in the briar patch of rehabbing the older home, the sisters revisit their perennial clashes and remember common poignant memories unpacking their different points of view on shared experiences.

Given the real life clashes families often have over lopsided inheritances and treasured family residences, the Dixon-Mayes script is kind and humane.  In the end it's not the money or the property but the love and connection that is most important, and right now that is an essential message for humans to receive.

Rabbits in their Pockets has three more shows this weekend: go to https://lifelinetheatre.com/performances/2025-2026/rabbits-in-their-pockets/ before it closes on October 5 at the Lifeline Theatre, 6912 N Glenwood, Chicago.

No part of this review was created using AI

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