Review: “Kill Move Paradise” by Playhouse on Park

West Hartford - Playhouse on Park presented live outdoor performances of the mainstage production of “Kill Move Paradise” in Bushnell Park in late June. For those that were unable to experience the play in the Hartford park, one of the performances was recorded on video for streaming online.

The play is the work of James Ijames. The playwright was directly influenced by the 2014 murder of 12-year-old Tamir Rice by a member of the Cleveland Police Department.

The New York Times Critics Pick play was developed in 2016 at the Victory Gardens Theatre in Chicago, Illinois and premiered in 2017 at the National Black Theatre in New York, New York. eye opening

The play tells the raw story of Isa, Daz, Grif, and Tiny, four black men who find themselves stuck in a cosmic waiting room in the afterlife.

In a press release, we learn that the playwright was inspired by the ever-growing list of slain unarmed black men and women. He offers this work as a portrait of those lost. Ijames does not want them to be seen as statistics, but as heroes who deserve to be seen for the splendid beings they are, and as symbols of life and hope. They are gone but never be forgotten; this play intends to “illustrate the possibilities of collective transformation and radical acts of joy.”

At one point, one of the men reads a long list of the persons of color that have been killed. I was struck by how many of the names on the list were unfamiliar to me, and that was no doubt the point of including it in the script.

Dexter J. Singleton directed the Playhouse on Park production with a keen eye to the playwright’s intentions. Singleton, who is from Detroit, Michigan, is a director, producer, activist, and educator. He is currently the Founding Executive Artistic Director of Collective Consciousness Theatre (CCT), a multicultural theatre for social justice in New Haven, CT. He is also a visiting Assistant Professor of Performance at the University of Connecticut.

There was a talk back after every live performance that was probably helpful in appreciating all of the themes in the play.

All of the fine actors make their Playhouse on Park debut in “Kill Move Paradise” and all thoughtfully bring their respective characters to life.

Christopher Alexander Chukwueke, a graduate of Howard University, plays Daz. Oliver Sai Lester appears in the role of Grif; he is an actor and singer from Hartford, CT and has performed in theatre productions and musicals throughout Connecticut.

Quan Chamber, an actor, director and dancer from Michigan and began his performance career in the theatre scene in Detroit, plays Tiny. Trevelle Morgan, who hails from Tampa, Florida and is a graduate of the University of South Florida, plays Isa.

The filming of the performance is extremely well executed with multiple cameras, making the online viewer feel as if they were seated in the audience and sometimes using a zoom lens. Views of the entire stage were mixed with pertinent close ups, some intentionally making the viewer slightly uncomfortable. The characters acknowledge the presence of the audience watching them at several points, but it is not entirely clear why we are supposed to be watching them in the room in which they are waiting to move. The biblical ending was entirely clear and effectively gave some closure to the work.

Be prepared that the play frankly describes and depicts moments of violence and racism. The characters use very strong language and there are sounds of gunshots. In the filmed performance, we hear the sounds of nearby sirens twice that were probably not provided by the sound crew.

KILL MOVE PARADISE is available to stream online thru August 1 for $20. The running time of the play is 65 minutes.

Photo by Meredith Longo.

Nancy Sasso Janis has been writing theatre reviews since 2012 as a way to support local theatre venues. She posts reviews of well over 100 productions each year. In 2016, she became a member of the Connecticut Critics Circle. She continues to contribute theatre news, previews, and audition notices to local Patch sites. Reviews of all levels of theatrical productions are posted on Naugatuck Patch and the Patch sites closest to the venue. She recently became a contributor to the Waterbury Republican-American newspaper. Her weekly column and theatre reviews appear in the Thursday Weekend section of the paper.

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