Michael Bradford’s play is set in 1876, when two former slaves separated on their wedding night are reunited, and 12 years earlier, when the slave owner tormented the couple and their friends and family. Director Runako Jahi’s production opens with a man hanging from a tree, but this striking early image is the play’s only example of showing rather than telling. The rest of Bradford’s tale of slavery and its aftermath is delivered in highly dramatic monologues interspersed with hints of the supernatural, sexual innuendo, and romance. Though Lauren Wells gives a passionate performance in a supporting role, the show is otherwise plodding as the audience simply waits for the roaming groom, who fled a dozen years earlier, to run away again. –Jenn Goddu a Through 6/17: Thu-Sat 8 PM, Sun 3 and 7 PM, ETA Creative Arts Foundation, ETA Square, 7558 S. South Chicago, 773-752-3955, $25, two for one Thu and 7 PM Sun (except closing night).
