Sunset Baby

I went to see the play Sunset Baby yesterday and it was...interesting. The play is about a young woman, Nina, whose parents were social activists in the 70s and 80s. Nina's mother ended up on drugs and died as a result while her father was in jail. Her father tracks here down after he's released from prison but she doesn't want anything to do with him. She's angry and bitter because of her mother's problems (that she blames her father for creating). It's a hard play to watch because there are no winners here. Nina, who survives by selling drugs and committing armed robbery with her thug boyfriend, Damon, is so angry (even if she's justified in that anger) that it was hard for me to have a lot of sympathy for her. Her father, Kenyatta, who's been largely absent in her life (he deserted Nina and her mother prior to his incarceration), comes on the scene too late to make a difference in his daughter's life and I was never really sure if he sincerely wanted to try and create a bond with her or if he was an opportunist. And Damon, Nina's gangster boyfriend, is really just a waste of space. He has his own child he barely sees (although he blames the child's mother for that) and he mentally, verbally, and physically abuses Nina all under the guise of claiming to love her. Yeah, right. I'm sure for many of the older (white), upper-class theater patrons in the audience, Sunset Baby was a lot for them to take. The language was often harsh and the play doesn't glamorize life in the ghetto at all. It's survival of fittest for a lot of folks and the struggle is real.