Dominoes

Playwright McIntosh debuts with a thought-provoking study of race, ancestry, and inheritance based on her one-woman play of the same name. When Layla McKinnon, who is mixed race, begins dating Andy McKinnon, who is white, their shared surname feels at first like a meet-cute in the making. But Layla’s best friend, Sera, a social justice activist, is convinced that Andy’s substantial family wealth is tied to his forebears’ history as slave owners, and that they enslaved Layla’s ancestors. After Andy and Layla get engaged to be married, Layla, haunted by Sera’s insinuations, travels to Jamaica for the first time in search of her roots. As a history teacher, she knows the outlines of Britain’s legacy of slaveholding, but she is nevertheless surprised and shaken by the extent of its ongoing economic repercussions. Her conflicted feelings of love and revulsion toward Andy and his family rouse sympathies, but the real heart of the story lies with the damage done to her decades-long friendship with Sera, who can no longer condone the impending nuptials as evidence supporting her claim continues to mount. Despite a somewhat abrupt resolution, McIntosh largely succeeds at transferring her story from stage to page. This stimulating portrayal of a fraught familial history is sure to spark debate. (Mar.)