Darrick Mosley and Nubia Monks Photo by Caroline Yang

Paradise Blue is the second of three plays by Morisseau that constitute what she calls her Detroit Project. Each of the plays takes place at an historic inflection point for the Black community in the playwright's hometown, Detroit. The first of the three, Detroit, '67, premiered in 2013. It depicts a pair of grown siblings struggling to make their lives work when everything is upended by the ferocious Detroit race riot summer of 1967. The final play of the Detroit Cycle, Skeleton Crew, which premiered in 2016, is set in 2008 and addresses the impact of the shuttering of legacy auto plants that employed large numbers of Black residents since the start of the Great Migration.

Paradise Blue, the second of the three plays to appear (in 2015), is set in 1949 and addresses the beginnings of gentrification and displacement in a part of Detroit called Black Bottom which, from 1920 through the 1950s, was a densely populated center of African American life. Paradise Valley was the business district within Black Bottom, and noteworthy for the fact that, unlike other Black neighborhoods, its businesses were largely owned and operated by African Americans. Descriptions of Paradise Valley made by P-Sam, one of the play's five characters, create a sense that the dignity and self-respect this accords is what made the neighborhood a paradise.

Paradise Blue is the name of a jazz club in Paradise Valley, with a large and desirable central location. It is owned by a horn player called Blue (Mikel Sapp), who is the highly temperamental leader of a jazz quartet. When the play begins, his bass player Joe just quit because Blue refused to satisfy his reasonable demand for on-time payment. That leaves Blue with pianist Corn (Lester Purry) and percussionist P-Sam (Darrick Mosley).

Blue's long-suffering romantic partner, Pumpkin (Nubia Monks), works the club's bar and kitchen, and cleans up in the club and also the rooms for rent above the club. To the observer she is more an indentured servant to Blue than a sweetheart, but something in the way he plays his horn has settled deep in her bones, and she can't give him up. She also knows the anguish Blue has suffered in life and believes that her love is the only salve that can heal him. The one thing that buoys Pumpkin's spirits is reciting poems she memorizes, poems that speak to women's self-actualization, in contradiction to the reality of Pumpkin's life.

But Blue is not healing and the ghosts of his past are not loosening their hooks on him. This, in turn, makes him turn ugly to Pumpkin and also to P-Sam and Corn. Corn, an older man, played with Blue's father, who owned the club before Blue. He tries, mostly in vain, to keep everyone on an even keel, but P-Sam, Blue's contemporary, sees Blue's moods and self-absorption interfering with his own dreams. When word comes that the city wants to buy up businesses in Paradise Valley, tear down the exhausted structures and bring in new development (an upscale hotel is talked about) Blue insists he won't ever sell Paradise Blue. Corn and Pumpkin know that the club, having been passed down by his father, is in Blue's blood, but P-Sam harbors doubts.

Into this mix, a woman called Silver (Angela Wildflower) arrives and turns everything and everyone on end. Silver dresses like she expects men to fall in love with her, has a walk that triggers men's most base response, and speaks as if hers is the last word on any subject, getting slow mileage out of her Louisiana drawl. She also carries a large wad of cash, unusual for a woman travelling alone, and is unduly secretive about where she has been, where she is going, and what brought her to Black Bottom.

Morisseau orchestrates these five characters like the play's jazz musicians, giving them each their individual riffs and playing together in discordant harmonies. She writes dialogue that sounds achingly authentic, and crafts plot lines that are highly dramatic while never losing credibility. Like the other four of her plays I have seen, Paradise Blue opens a window into particular challenges that face Black people at specific times, and in the Detroit plays, a specific place, but it is not an "issues play." The issue is there, like the stage floor and lights, as the human drama unspools. These are plays of both substance and humanity, the closest I have seen to the works of August Wilson.

And if the play is brilliant, the actors are every bit its match. Mosley's Blue is a seething pressure cooker, threatening at every moment to explode, yet he can seem like a helpless child when he collapses into Pumpkin's nurturing arms. Purry conveys Corn's blend of a sage wisdom that seeks to defuse tensions, and a fear of stirring up demons that he knows to be toxic. His depicts Corn's unexpected second chance at romance with grace and humor. Mosley superbly expresses P-Sam's restless energy and frustrations, finding himself blocked as a musician, as a lover, and as a man. He displays an intelligence in P-Sam that never found the right outlet to blossom.

The cast's two women, Nubia Monks and Angela Wildflower, acted together in Theatre Latté Da's marvelous The Color Purple almost a year ago, Monks as Celie, and Wildflower as Shug Avery. In Paradise Blue, the two actors don't draw their characters into the same kind of deep connection, but there are parallels. A steely competition between them, Wildflower's Silver easily having the upper hand over Monks' Pumpkin, who accepts the demeaning description of herself as a "get-along gal," shifts into one character acting as a tutor in life for the other.

Monks astonishes with her ability to show us Pumpkin's mercurial shifts from adoration for Blue, to terror when his moods attack, and she makes credible the journey her character takes in the course of Paradise Blue. Wildflower has a delicious moment when Silver, in a confrontation with Blue, bends backwards and turns away, uncharacteristically afraid, and you can see the character's mental wheels turning as she struggles to maintain her balance and come back for another attack.

Lou Bellamy, Penumbra's artistic director emeritus, has directed Paradise Blue with both sensitivity and precision. He makes the interactions between any two of the characters into a unique and believable relationship, so that we see the complexity that eludes easy answers for them.

The physical production is terrific on every front. The marvelous set designed by Maruti Evans depicts the warn-out ambience of the Paradise Blue club. A large desilvering mirror above the bar rises to reveal the room Silver has rented for her stay in Black Bottom. That upstairs, glittery Silver has settled in, while downstairs, silver is flaking away from the mirror seems predestined. A neon sign above the entire building identifies the club in capital letters, PARADISE BLUE, but the sign is so large, part off it is offstage, so all we see is ARADISE BLUE–only the end of paradise.

Wanda Walden's period-smart costumes are excellent, each finely tuned to the nature of the person beneath the clothing, with particular attention to the contrast between Pumpkin and Silver's apparel. Marcus Dilliard's lighting design paints atmosphere throughout the play, and Gregory Robinson's sound design and musical compositions provide a jazz pulse that beats in a steady crescendo. Fight choreographer Marciano Silva dos Santos creates a breathless moment when rising tensions erupt into violence.

Every element of this play and this production is rock solid. No matter the vehicle, Penumbra can always be counted on to perform at the highest level, and even on that lofty plane, Paradise Blue ranks especially high. It is a powerful show that deserves recognition and demands to be seen.

Paradise Blue runs through March 9, 2025, at Penumbra Theatre, 270 North Kent Street, Saint Paul MN. For tickets and information, please call 651-2242025 -3180 or visit www.penumbratheatre.org.

Playwright: Dominique Morisseau; Director: Lou Bellamy; Scenic Designer: Maruti Evans; Costume Designer: Wanda Walden; Assistant Costume Designer: Mary Farrell; Sound Designer and Composer: Gregory Robinson; Lighting Designer: Marcus Dilliard; Props Designer: Jenny Moeller; Wigs and Makeup Designer: Jamakah Webb; Fight Choreographer: Marciano Silva dos Santos; Music Consultant: Omar Karim; Stage Manager: Megan West; Assistant Stage Manager: Constance Brevell.

Cast: Nubia Monks (Pumpkin), Darrick Mosley (P-Sam), Lester Purry (Corn), Mikell Sapp (Blue), Angela Wildflower (Silver).