Visitation
2W 1M, 2 hrs
In Aurora, Colorado, suburbia is turned upside down. Dawn, the white-woman queen of her suburban lawn, is trapped in her house. She can talk to Anthony, her husband, she can talk to her patch of green, her lawn, and she can also see, speak to, and respond to her audience. This is sometimes a lively part of her life, but most of the time it burdens Dawn, as she often must “please” her viewers, waiting for real audience approval and engagement throughout the play.
On one seemingly normal day, Dawn receives a visitor, a Black woman named Joan whose encounter with the lawn becomes contentious as she waits for the city bus. This chance (or miraculously planned) encounter leads to a tenuous friendship between the two women, as Dawn begins to welcome Joan more and more into her domestic space. The women and Anthony sit down for a dinner that culminates in Joan becoming stuck, as she accidentally slips into the routines of the housewife.
With Joan also stuck in the house, Dawn begins to plot the women’s escape. She remembers another woman who escaped this sort of suburban purgatory, her childhood friend Taylor, and rehearses related memories, with Joan as Taylor. Walking through this past allows Dawn to see a way out—and that the way out can only be accessed by one person. Using this knowledge, Dawn leaves, and she leaves Joan in her place. As the play continues, the audience becomes a character and perpetrator in the trap; they “like” Joan, and she assumes the role of the housewife and the entertainer.