Review: "Redeemed" Scrutinizes the Space Between the Truth and What We Want It to Be

Redeemed

Written by Chisa Hutchinson

Directed by marcus d. harvey

Presented by Contemporary American Theater Festival at 59E59 Theaters

59 E. 59th St., Manhattan, NYC

September 15-October 5, 2024

Elizabeth Sun and Doug Harris in Redeemed. Photo by Carol Rosegg.
Americans love a good redemption story. We are conditioned, indeed, to expect redemption, according to one of the characters in Chisa Hutchinson's tension-filled, thought-provoking two-hander Redeemed. Impactfully realized through a pair of absorbing and finely shaded performances, Redeemed approaches the possibilities of forgiveness and what it might look like or mean in a way that compellingly intersects with a nexus of personal grief and social hierarchies. The play's current NYC run is part of the second annual AMPLIFY Festival at 59E59 Theaters, which spotlights three original works by the same playwright across 59E59's three stages. This year, AMPLIFY features the NYC premieres of a trio of works from the award-winning, NY-based Hutchinson, with a fantastic production of The Bleeding Class (you can read our review here) preceding Redeemed and Amerikin still to come.

Despite the play's past-tense title, the redemption in question is far from a fait accompli. Trevor Barlow (Doug Harris) has spent nine years in prison for the spur-of-the-moment, xenophobically motivated murder of literary agent Claire Yiang's (Elizabeth Sun) brother Mark. With his first parole hearing approaching, Trevor has written a letter to Claire that has convinced her to meet with him. During that meeting–on a minimalist set (designed by David M. Barber) with just a hint of a cage in the metal poles that sketch the boundaries of a room–Trevor claims that he is no longer the person whom he once was, that he has unsparingly interrogated the white racial-economic resentment that led to his beating to death a Chinese man who had come to the United States with Claire after their parents were killed during the Tiananmen Square protests.
Doug Harris and Elizabeth Sun in Redeemed. Photo by Carol Rosegg.
Before prison, Trevor worked in the tech industry, and at one point, he describes the change as having fixed bad code in himself, an evocative metaphor that asserts the potential for individual change in a way that suggests problems aren't entirely inborn. He also, however, claims that Claire's brother has been appearing to him and relays further ghostly communications from his victim throughout his encounter with Claire. The play is divided into two such meetings, and we quickly apprehend that Claire has arrived to the second of them having done her research, which, along with her change to denim from her earlier pinstripe suit and her and Trevor's taking the chairs opposite from where they sat in their initial encounter, hints that this latter go-round will unfold with these characters on different footings.

Trevor's attempt to convince Claire that he is a new man who is (literally) haunted by his past actions and that she should help him with a particular request foreground conflicts and disparities linked to race, gender, and, via Claire's brother, sexuality. Trevor in fact raises some of these issues himself, which in turn prompts questions about the appropriation or even weaponization of progressive discourses, including those around trauma and anti-racism. Trevor too is the one who waxes passionately on the importance of truly listening to others/Others, all of which reproduces at a global narrative level in the play a thorny disjunction that is crystallized in something that Trevor has created while imprisoned: What do we do with something potentially positive created by, in this case, a bigoted murderer? Does it matter if he has changed? And what do any of the answers mean for the question of whether prison has "worked" here and by what measure? (What if, for example, he has not "changed" but does something that could be a public good?) A similar but more personal question that emerges from Claire is whether it is worth having a little more of her brother kept alive in the world even if it is in the memory and words of and maybe ghostly connections to his murderer.
Doug Harris and Elizabeth Sun in Redeemed. Photo by Carol Rosegg.
Like the set, the sonic backdrop for Claire and Trevor's pressurized comings together is minimalist, with subtle sound design by David Remedios that underlines rather than prescribes for the audience. Harris and Sun masterfully keep in view both the surface and the half-glimpsed undercurrents of their characters' interactions, as in a moment when barely contained fury threatens Trevor's abashed humility or a stretch in which we discern an edge beneath the cheerful amiability that Claire substitutes for her more usual cold competence and toughness. These sensitively detailed performances keep the audience both involved and slightly unsure until an ending that will surely provoke many a discussion on the way home from the theater.

-John R. Ziegler and Leah Richards

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