(REVIEW) A brilliant new play that kicks off the National Black Theatre 2022-23 season takes a gorgeous gospel crooner about heaven and turns it into a story about grief, change, faith and family. 

It’s set in 1970s New Jersey, where a Baptist church is on its last legs. It’s losing membership and out of money, facing the imminent threat of foreclosure. Pastor Fowler, who has recently suffered the loss of his wife, stubbornly refuses to leave the pulpit for a younger preacher to step in. This puts him in competition with his younger brother Benjamin, who has started his own, more modern congregation. 

Fowler’s Hail Mary is his daughter Orpah, who signed a record deal years ago and left the congregation to become a gospel and R&B superstar. The play takes place over the course of one Sunday, when Orpah returns to the church to record a live album.

She’s equipped with a horde of private donors who would give the church the money it needs to stay afloat, but her career in secular music threatens to drive away what few members the church has left. Her presence also threatens Ruth, the straight-laced older sister who’s taking care of her aging father and the church. 

“As an eldest sibling, you feel that you have this obligation or responsibility to look after others,” said Kala Ross, who plays Ruth. “Ruth has some resentment in the choices that she’s made with her own life, and we see how that affects the relationship with her sister as well as the relationship with her father.”

The worst of these resentments comes from the fact that Ruth wrote the song and performed the demo that got Orpah her record deal. Unsurprisingly, there’s tension between the sisters that goes deeper than just their conflicting personalities. 

Playwright TyLie Shider, an alumnus of NBT’s 18-month I Am Soul residency — which helps emerging Black artists create a workshop production — says the play is based on the Parable of the Prodigal Son. In the parable, which Jesus shares in the Gospel of Luke, a father has two sons; the younger of the two asks for his inheritance early and squanders it while he’s away. After losing everything, he returns home to beg his father for forgiveness, but his father welcomes him home — clothing him and slaughtering the best calf for a celebratory feast. This incites jealousy from the loyal older son.

The parable is one that is most often discussed alongside the Christian theme of redemption, as the generosity of the father is far beyond what it might have been. The older son is often used to represent tightly-laced Christians who are unwilling to forgive and show mercy. 

Whereas the parable ends with that celebratory party, “The Gospel Woman” begins with the celebrated return of younger daughter Orpah. To simplify the analogy, the play is the parable told from the perspective of the elder sibling who’s chosen to stay behind. It explores the complex emotional state that accompanies the return of a family member who’s made twice as many mistakes and is seemingly loved twice as much. 

But “The Gospel Woman” has even more to offer. Shider calls the play an “American family drama,” and it certainly is that. Firmly rooted in Black history, it takes place with the context of the Vietnam War, segregation and the 1967 race riots. 

The show is also, in part, based on Shider’s own family: His mother and her sisters were all gospel singers. 

“Anybody who grew up with me or knows me wouldn’t be surprised that I wrote a play called ‘The Gospel Woman,’” Shider told ReligionUnplugged.com. “I’m very open about how much biography I use.”

But ultimately, it isn’t a play about his family — it’s about the music they made. He talks about the play’s primary song, “Paradise,” which his mother recorded when she was younger. 

“She was a preteen, like 12 years old, when they recorded it,” Shider said. “They always used to tell us a story about how they recorded it in this old basement studio, the four of them standing around this big old mic and singing it all at once. It was just one of those oral histories that went around our family for a while, and eventually it became something that I pulled and decided to write about.”

Shider isn’t the only one with a family background in gospel music. Ross and Musical Director Aaron Marcellus told ReligionUnplugged that close family members who were gospel musicians inspired and guided their careers in different ways. 

“Probably 20 years ago when I switched genres, my mom told me, ‘You know, I think you’re a star, and I am just amazed at what you do, but my religion won’t let me get with it,’” Marcellus said. “But it’s all gospel to me. I’m singing love. I’m telling stories.”

She has since come to support him fully, but Marcellus said, “Listening to the story of ‘The Gospel Woman,’ it really does make me proud to be attached to it because of this personal connection.”

The play reflects plenty that there are some who hold a strictly traditional view of gospel music, but its music blends the past, present and future. One of its core messages is that change is often a good thing, as clinging unconsciously to the past often results in unresolved bitterness.  

Marcellus “really made the play be a representation of an intergenerational conversation with gospel music,” Shider said. The music blends traditional gospel sound with more contemporary R&B influences. 

“I hope that people will not only be moved by the story but moved by the music and the expression of every note — these original compositions from TyLie and his family,” Marcellus said. “I really am looking forward to people experiencing that story come alive and feeling like they’re actually in church in those moments.”

Frankly, there’s no better way to put it. Hearing Fowler, Orpah and Ruth sing — both separately and together — is like being in a church service. A really good church service. It gave me chills, and it made me cry. The whole production oozes with talent, from the lyrics to the voices who sing them. 

And, much like the Parable of the Prodigal Son, the story does result in redemption. It’s a redemption that feels complete and genuine, with family tension and grief resolved only in the way that requires difficult conversations and a lot of faith. 

“We were very intentional about not making it a play that condemns the church, but a play that is a tribute to the Black church and to faith in general,” Shider said. “If it is a healthy Christian message, then it is about love, faith, hope and family. This is a healthy story about the church.”

“The Gospel Woman” is at Chelsea Factory in New York from Nov. 9 to 13. Tickets are available on the theater’s website.

Jillian Cheney is a contributing culture writer for Religion Unplugged. She also writes on American Protestantism and evangelical Christianity and was Religion Unplugged’s 2020-21 Poynter-Koch fellow. You can find her on Twitter @_jilliancheney.