The art of falling apart with Theatre Horizon’s ‘sandblasted’

Portraying the emotional, spiritual, sexual and socio-political struggles of Black women in the present day is no simple feat. In the words of playwright and television writer Charly Evon Simpson, those hurdles become a darkly comic, sulfurous satire of figurative and literal loss in ‘sandblasted‘.

Matching Evon Simpson’s blackly satirical ideals, hardcore language and a denouement that touches more on acceptance than questions resolved, is a highly physicalized script – directed by Cheyenne Barboza with costume designer Ang(ela) Bey and prosthetics master Jo Vito Ramirez – that finds its young actors Morgan Charéce and Jessica Johnson shockingly more limbless as time goes on. These actors characters, Angela and Odessa, lose their limbs in a harsh portrait of how pressure destroys the mind, spirit and body.

“I’m the only one in ‘sandblasted’ who is not falling apart, and there’s no real telling why she isn’t breaking down,” said Philadelphia acting and directing legend Zuhairah, of her character Adah.

“The first thing that hit me when I read ‘sandblasted’ was why did the playwright write this, will the audience understand it, and do I understand it to properly so to deliver what Simpson wants?,” Zuhairah added. “Despite the satire of it all, the audience knows that Black women are falling apart. The world is falling apart. As human being, we’re all falling apart. The world tells Black women that they have to push through, even when their children die in front of them or they just lost their job or put out of your house. From the time we were brought over here as slaves, it is the women, the mothers, meant to hold things up and keep it all together. The audience at Theatre Horizon – Black women, White women – gets that this is all happening in real and metaphorical ways. Who knows? Maybe people in our audience are falling apart.”

Without giving too much away in regard to ‘sandblasted‘ and how Adah is meant to help two younger women whose limbs are falling off, Zuhairah states there is something of the matron in her wellness guru.

“The older matriarch is trying to teach these younger women about life, and the younger women don’t think that Adah knows what she’s doing,” she said with a laugh. “It is interesting to see how the generational gap is played out – going against and working for.”

And yes, in a very real sense, Zuhairah is something of a maternal figure to her two fellow Theatre Horizon sandblasted actors.

“I do believe that I, Morgan and Jessica have bonded in like fashion,” said the actor-director. “I’m Morgan’s mentor, and have been talking her up in Philadelphia theater for years. And I listen to Jessica and Morgan’s stories, they listen to mine, and I believe that our conversations among ourselves, among generations, are mutually beneficial. We’re all on the same level. Remember, in the theater world, I’m known as “Mama Z,” always giving advice. Like Adah in ‘sandblasted‘, I’m passing it on and passing it down.”

‘sandblasted’ is on stage at Theatre Horizon through June 4. For information and tickets, visit theatrehorizon.org/sandblasted