Bulrusher

Thursday, October 05, 2023 @ 7:30pm

McCarter Theatre Center (Berlind Theater)
91 University Place, Princeton, NJ 08540

By Eisa Davis

Directed by McCarter's Associate Artistic Director Nicole A. Watson

In 1955, in the redwood country north of San Francisco, a multiracial girl grows up in a predominantly white town whose residents pepper their speech with the historical dialect of Boontling. Found floating in a basket on the river as an infant, Bulrusher is an orphan with a gift for clairvoyance that makes her feel like a stranger even around those who think they know her best:  the taciturn schoolteacher who adopted her, the madam who runs her brothel with a fierce discipline, the logger with a zest for horses and women, and the guitar-slinging boy who is after Bulrusher's heart. Just when she thought her world might close in on her, she discovers an entirely new sense of self when a Black girl from Alabama comes to town.

"Davis has powers as a writer to find beauty in almost everything, and her play pulses with compassion and life. Bulrusher has the kind of satisfying, uplifting ending you can only find in live theater - vibrant, poetic, immediate and thrilling." - Bay Area News Group