A play at the Guthrie Theater turns a bit of our country's history on its head. The Guthrie is hosting the world premiere of “Sally and Tom”, about the relationship between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, a slave with whom he had six children before he became President.
But the show is more than just that. Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks has crafted a 'play within a play' that is intended to leave the audience with more questions than answers.
Kristen Ariza plays Sally and she said Parks told the cast the story would be complicated for audiences.
“One of my favorite things that she said to us in rehearsal, she said this play is a complex carbohydrate,” explains Ariza. “That it will not be digested in one sitting. That you will talk about it. You’ll think about it. You might have to come back. You will come back later in another theater.”
The story revolves around Thomas Jefferson, who returns to his Monticello plantation in rural Virginia after spending three years in Paris. There, the complexities of his relationship with Sally Hemings, the teenage sister of his enslaved valet and chef, begin to unfold. Parks spotlights the unexpected parallels between 1790 and today while taking the audience on “a journey through the past that inevitably catches up with the present,” according to the Guthrie Theater.
Ariza says Sally and Tom took many forms between its first rehearsals and opening night, a luxury she says is only possible with a brand new work. The Guthrie production is the show's world premiere before it likely heads to Broadway in New York.
“It is huge, it really is,” says Ariza. “Most world premieres happen in New York, they’re workshopped there. To get a work of this caliber, by a Pulitzer Prize winning author who’s about to be inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame, this is major.”
The play has been running since October 1 and wraps up November 6 at the Guthrie in Downtown Minneapolis. Parks is the first African American woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
There are still some tickets available via the Guthrie website here.
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