The Play I Wish I Wrote
Boo Killbrew was a turning point for me as a playwright. Sure, there are many other profoundly moving plays I have read since, that make me grateful I practice this craft. However, The Play About My Dad moves me in ways I could not quite execute into words. I have reread this play a few times, each time finding new meanings, new doors to open for both craft, and emotion. But what really compels me? Her ability to execute vulnerability in a memoirist fashion. This play was gut wrenching emotional because she admits her flaws and puts them at the forefront of the conflict, while also using them to drive the play forward. Boo successfully intertwines magical realism by exaggerating audience illusions of creating setting on stage.
As the play begins, we place ourselves in Gulfport, Mississippi, on the brink of Hurricane Katrina. Boo tells the story through a few different lenses, mainly through her and her father, Larry's narrative. Larry and Boo are literally worshiping and writing the play as it is presented. From the jump, we get the sense Boo and Larry have had to mend their relationship. We are not exactly sure what happened, but we are okay knowing we will learn why later. Larry acts as the play's driving force, considering he was the one who physically experienced Hurricane Katrina. However, the other characters' storylines that incorporate themselves through Larry's make this play so engaging. The first people we meet, Neil and Kenny, are emergency medical technicians working the night of the hurricane. Kenny forms the bridge between the audience and time travel in their first scene together. He communicates with Neil that he randomly dimension jumps to different moments of his life, sharing that today is the day they die. Then we meet the Thomas family, Jay, Rena, and Michael, as they prepare for Hurricane Katrina. Their son Michael runs around them, fearful they're going to die. In the following scene, Larry visits Essie, his older neighbor, to ensure she's prepared her house for the worst. As audience members, we know the weight of Katrina and the disaster it entails. Boo and Larry's characters are also aware of the storm yet live in the play before it transpires. This memoirist approach intrigues me because these outside characters only interact with Larry for a short time on the day of the hurricane. Still, there is no way to know what happened when Larry was absent, yet Boo allows all their narratives to continue.
Scene six is when we begin interlacing these essential people in their lives and experience the hurricane together. Kenny explains to Neil that he does not want to change anything when he time travels because the events he witnesses have already happened. However, changing these moments because he knows something terrible will occur can alter the rest of his life. So, he enjoys the nostalgia in the flashbacks. Larry enters their scene the night of the storm to bring the men food. During this, Kenny travels back to when he and Boo were young kids running around playing. The innocence in the memoiristic tale of Boo's memory sweetens the relationship between her and Kenny. A time when her Dad was active in her life, and the two kids were optimistic and fearless. Which completely juxtaposes the present action of the play.
The following few scenes with Kenny and Neil are heartbreaking. Their conversations are deep and to the point; Kenny knows they will not leave this storm alive. As scene nine begins, we witness all three storylines merging at the most alarming part of the storm. The audience can not see the storm, yet the physicality of fear in the dialogue oozes, including the conversation spilling the juicy details of resentment from Boo towards Larry. Near the end of the scene, the audience flashes back to a conversation between Larry and Boo. This is when Larry tells her he is leaving her and her mom to marry another woman. “BOO: You didn't choose me? LARRY: I don't know. BOO: Please explain it to me so that it can make sense. LARRY: I can’t (I.VIIII page 45).” Both characters actively work through these emotions even at the point they are now, writing the play. Clearly, both are still hurting. Larry, uncomfortable reading what Boo wrote, and Boo, knowing this moment was pivotal in there development. Act one ends with Boo's mother saying, “She gave up on you, Larry (I.VIIII page 46).”
As we enter Act Two, Boo and Larry stand on the precipice of the worst part of the storm.
“BOO: When Hurricane Katrina hit my hometown in Gulfport, Mississippi, my father was trapped at Garden Park Hospital. I was worried. I was worried about finding a cute sailor suit so that I could go to “Cruise Themed Party” on that boat that is a bar near Chelsea Piers in New York City. That’s where I was. That’s what I was doing. (Beat. She continues.) My father looked out the window of the hospital and saw people swimming towards it. Can you imagine that? I can’t imagine that(II.I page 49).”
Now here is when the play had me on the edge of my seat. Boo's vulnerability in storytelling, even knowing the admission, compels me. This moment of realization that she has wasted so much time since that final conversation being mad at her father. She never reached out, never bothered mending their relationship, and now faces the fear of losing him forever. In the following scene, the water pours into every physical space the characters inhabit. Again, rather than creating an elaborate set with literal water, Neil and Kenny mark water lines on the side of the ambulance as it rises. In the scene, the Thomas family retreats to their roof because the water has reached the attic. Neil and Kenny sit up to their shoulders in the ambulance with water. The consistency of beyond realism builds nervousness in the audience. We know what's going to happen. We know how Katrina ends, but Boo somehow still has us rooting for these characters to make it out alive.
As I flipped through the last pages of the play, I felt breathless, with a knot in my throat. We watch Michael's mother walk across the roof to look for her husband, but she falls through the roof and floats away from her son. Feeling the apprehension in Kenny and Neil's voices as they write their social security number on the ambulance walls so their bodies can be identified when they die.
Finally, we realize Michael appears in the story because he was brought to the hospital Larry works at by two firefighters the night of Katrina. They never find Larry’s old neighbor, Michael’s father never returns, and the two men die honorably never leaving their work post.This feeling of melancholy, yet somewhat relief, ultimately leaves you heartbroken. The scenes in The Play About My Dad will live in my head forever. I do not need to see a production to feel the severity of the physical action. The use of magical realism, illusion, and dialogue create a story that surpasses the limits I thought confined plays. Boo Killebrew writes a love letter to families everywhere to be kinder, dig deeper, and love harder.
