''Is God Is'' is an American play by

Aleshea Harris Aleshea Harris is an American playwright, spoken word artist, author, educator, actor, performer, and screenwriter. Her play ''Is God Is'' won the American Playwriting Foundation's Relentless Award in 2016. In 2023, her play ''On Sugarland'' was ...

. In 2018 a production directed by Taibi Magar opened

Off-Broadway An off-Broadway theatre is any professional theatre venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, inclusive. These theatres are smaller than Broadway theatres, but larger than off-off-Broadway theatres, which seat fewer tha ...

Soho Rep The Soho Repertory Theatre, known as Soho Rep,The official website'now use "Soho", with a lowercase h, as do most articles from th''New York Times''/ref> is an American Off-Broadway theater company based in New York City which is notable for pro ...

and ran from February 6 to March 11. The play looks at deviant morality, familial dysfunction, being a black girl/woman, and

patricide Patricide (or paternal homicide) is the act of killing one's own father. The word ''patricide'' derives from the Latin language, Latin word ''pater'' (father) and the suffix ''-cida'' (cutter or killer). Patricide is a sub-form of parricide, wh ...

. A film adaptation of the play, directed by Harris for distribution by

Orion Pictures Orion Releasing, LLC (Trade name, doing business as Orion Pictures) is an American film production and film distribution, distribution company owned by the Amazon MGM Studios subsidiary of Amazon (company), Amazon. It was founded in 1978 as Ori ...

, began filming in 2024.

Plot

Twenty-one-year-old African-American twin sisters Racine and Anaia were burned and scarred as babies. Racine has burn scars on her arms, back, and neck, and Anaia has scars on her arms, face, and neck. After receiving a letter in their apartment in

Northeast The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A '' compass rose'' is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—eac ...

, they journey to the Dirty South to the deathbed of their mother, who is known as "SHE" or "God" and has scars all over her body. SHE informs them that their father, referred to as “Man”, set the fire that burned the three of them. SHE instructs the sisters to go west to The Valley to find and kill him for revenge. The sisters travel to The Valley to face Man and his new family.

Reception

''Is God Is'' received 3

Obie Award The Obie Awards or Off-Broadway Theater Awards are annual awards given since 1956 by ''The Village Voice'' newspaper to theater artists and groups involved in off-Broadway and off-off-Broadway productions in New York City. Starting just after th ...

s: Playwriting for Aleshea Harris, Directing for Taibi Magar, and Performance for

Alfie Fuller Alfie Fuller is an American actress best known for her work on seasons four and five of '' The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel''. She is a main cast member on the Hulu comedy series '' Deli Boys''. Career Fuller has an MFA from the New School for Drama. ...

as Anaia and Dame-Jasmine Hughes as Racine. The play won the American Playwriting Foundation's Relentless Award in 2016. The award, issued to playwrights annually to honor

Philip Seymour Hoffman Philip Seymour Hoffman (July 23, 1967 – February 2, 2014) was an American actor. Known for his distinctive supporting and character actor, character roles—eccentrics, underdogs, and misfits—he acted in many films and theatrical productio ...

, honored the play, noting its depiction of a revenge story that draws from "the ancient, the modern, the tragic, the

Spaghetti Western The spaghetti Western is a broad subgenre of Western films produced in Europe. It emerged in the mid-1960s in the wake of Sergio Leone's filmmaking style and international box-office success. The term was used by foreign critics because most o ...

hip-hop Hip-hop or hip hop (originally disco rap) is a popular music genre that emerged in the early 1970s from the African-American community of New York City. The style is characterized by its synthesis of a wide range of musical techniques. Hi ...

and

Afropunk Afro-punk (sometimes spelled Afro-punk, Afropunk, or AfroPunk) refers to the participation of black people in punk music and subculture. Participation in punk music has existed since the genre's origins in the 1969 with the ska movement of Boss ...

". The cash prize of $45,000 is the largest cash prize in American theatre given, and about 2,000 un-produced plays were submitted. The award gave Harris the opportunity to have stage readings in regional theaters across the country and abroad.

References

{{Reflist 2018 plays Off-Broadway plays Obie Award–winning plays