Theater Review: Last Night and the Night Before

When a story begins with a father (Reggie) digging a grave, tossing a body into it, and covering it up, while his young daughter (Sam) and her mother (Monique) are watching, you know that buried feelings will rise up to haunt the proceedings. But the deeper question, in the Denver Center Theatre Company’s world premiere of playwright Donnetta Lavinia Grays’ Last Night and the Night Before, is whether those involved will break the cycle of victims becoming perpetrators.

A few spins of the clock after the makeshift burial—when Monique (Keona Welch) shows up at her sister Rachel’s (Bianca Laverne Jones) toney brownstone in Brooklyn, with Sam (Zaria Kelley) in tow—the tension is palpable, as Rachel’s partner, Nadima (Erin Cherry), holds resentments from Monique’s last visit, which cost her $4,000 related to Monique’s heroin addiction.

Full review at Colorado Drama