Is God Is

She is a playwright, spoken word artist, author, educator, actor, performer, and screenwriter. Commissioned for the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, her plays have toured France and Belgium. She has won the American Playwriting Foundation's Relentless Award for her play, "Is God Is." Her name is Aleshea Harris, and A Red Orchid Theatre brought this dark, tragic drama to its stage, and its horrific storyline is suspensefully tantalizing. "Is God Is" is a disastrous family saga of epic proportions. The play depicts physical violence & assault, murder, fire, child endangerment, and abuse, profanity and discusses domestic violence, including burning a body.

What To Send Up When It Goes Down, a play that Aleshea Harris also wrote in response to Black people's deaths due to racialized violence, similarities to Is God Is regarding its voice against violence. It blends tragedy, hip-hop, and Afropunk and characterizes a spaghetti western with a despicable villain. We meet twins Racine(Aja Singletary) and Anaia(Ashli Rene Funches), who receive a letter from the mother they thought was dead. Their mothers request to see them, but Anaia is reluctant. It's been almost two decades since they last saw her, but Racine convinced Anaia they should visit her because she is like God, who gives them life. Nerves to meet her, the twins' mother tells them a horrific story about their father, who violated a restraining order, abused and tried to kill her by setting her on fire —causing them to receive burn marks on their bodies after trying to save her. She then asks the girls to do her a favor. Kill their estranged father and everyone he loves. Shocked by her request, the girls decide to avenge her, going on a mission from God. And when divided families, separated by an antagonist father, collide, the structure of this family will never be the same.    

Singletary and Funches provided a powerful performance, and Karen Aldridge(She), the mother, performance was brilliantly haunting. Rounding out the cast is Sherman Edwards (Chuck Hall), Andrew Muwonge (Scotch), Rita Wicks (Angie), Kevin Minor( Man), and the amazing Donovan Session (Riley).   

Is God Is, the award-winning work by playwright Aleshea Harris is filled with mentally disturbed and dysfunctional characters and has a mesmerizing storyline that is so haunting, you wish it were pure fiction— but sadly, one in four women have been victims of severe physical violence (beating, burning, strangling) by an intimate partner in their lifetime. This play uses intense dialogue, visual effects, and the sounds of violence, similar to Hitchcock's drama, that emotionally draws its audience into the production. The twin's aggressive behaviors confirm decades of genetic studies that linked family influences to violence. Director Marti Gobel decided to go with a more Afropunk, hip-hop, Greek tragedy drama that makes this production darker with less comedy. Is God Is asks us to consider the pointlessness of recurring cycles of violence, but frankly, this play mainly points to the tricking effects of violence in the presence of children, and its lingering adverse effects on their lives. The darkness within this production is troubling; however, I do not believe Harris wanted to mythologize tragedies within black families but universal tragedies and violence occurring within all families regardless of race. 

Harris challenges the normalcy of humanity by addressing its demons. How the mind functions under duress, dealing with rage, and how we premeditate revenge. Harris's "Is God Is" pushes all of your buttons when it comes to being a provocation and tantalizingly rich narrative of vengeance and vindication. The dilemma is whether its viewing audience can see this real narrative without being grossed out by the intense action and dialogue.  

Let's Play Theatrical Review Recommends Is God Is.   

A Red Orchid Theatre

Is God Is

Written by Aleshea Harris

Directed by Marti Gobel

April 6 - May 28, 2023