The ties that bind are put to profound test in Danai Gurira’s ‘Familiar’

At the close of the first act of Danai Gurira’s “Familiar,” you’re left with the certain impression that you’re midway through an exceptionally insightful farce, a domestic comedy that is expertly digging bedrock-and-deeper into what happens when a family’s ancestral, cultural roots start to fracture. The story of a rift between native Zimbabweans prospering in Minnesota and the traditions (and relatives) who remained in Africa isn’t unfamiliar: Tales of culture clashes – familial, generational, geographical — are as old as drama itself.

Then, the second act unfolds and “Familiar” explodes into something wholly unexpected. It remains uproariously farcical in some respects. But Gurira transcends the genre in a way that hedges toward astonishing. Directed by Danya Taymor, “Familiar” is the story of a familial wound deep enough to destroy all involved and of a family with bonds that don’t break even when stretched across oceans and battered by devastating revelations.

Gurira’s writing is a sublime mix of comedy and profundity. As for the actors delivering her words, well, it’s worth going back a few years. In 1990, Cheryl Lynn Bruce and Jacqueline Williams all but ripped a hole in the sky with their chemistry in Northlight Theatre’s production of “From the Mississippi Delta.” They are together again in “Familiar,” their unique, unforgettable chemistry burning brighter than ever. Alongside Ora Jones, Celeste M. Cooper, Lanise Antoine Shelley, Cedric Young, Erik Hellman and Luigi Sottile, they create an ensemble that’s a perfect match for Gurira’s dialogue.

Any plot description runs the risk of making “Familiar” sound like a soap opera. The daughter of Zimbabwean parents who immigrated to Minnesota when she was a toddler, Tendikayi (Shelley), is home in Minnesota to marry Chris (Hellman), the white founder of a non-profit. Tendi’s sister Nyasha (Cooper) a “singer/songwriter feng-shui consultant” is also home, bridling under her mother’s insistence that she get a real job. Parents Donald (Young) and Marvelous Chinyaramwira (Jones) are preparing for the kind of wedding where a Vera Wang gown is front-and-center and a Minnesota winter is no obstacle to the presence of copious fresh flowers. One look at Kristen Robinson’s set lets you know the family is doing quite well.

Marvelous’ sister Auntie Margaret Munyewa-Mai Tongai (Williams) is also in town, intensely clashing with her sibling. The family dynamics — fraught from the start — turn Gordian with the arrival of Auntie Anne-Mai Carol (Bruce) from Zimbabwe.

Auntie Anne will not bend on her insistence of a traditional Zimbabwean “bride price” ritual, wherein the groom pays (in this case, roughly $10,000 plus several designer suits and a cow) as a gesture of gratitude for receiving the “gem” that is his bride. Marvelous is equally iron-willed: No U.S.-born daughter of hers is going to submit to this African custom.

Part of the provocative insight of Gurira’s dialogue is that Auntie Anne’s advocacy for the ritual makes its significance and cultural urgency unmistakable. When Bruce’s Auntie Anne explains the forces behind the tradition, she taps into something ancient.

This is and isn’t about money: It’s about cultural erasure, and the survival of an African bloodline that goes back millennia and is in very real danger of being obliterated amid the blizzards of Minnesota. The more Gurira reveals about this family, the more slippery it gets on the moral high-ground claimed by those certain the “bride price” is barbaric.

Amid Gurira’s layered, compelling depiction of the unescapable pull of family and history, farcical hijinks abound. Pants drop. Doors slam. There is an ongoing bit about adding nuts to lasagna.

Amid all this, the cast delivers the pain, loss, frustration and love that make these family ties crackle like electric wires. When Williams’ Auntie Margaret talks about the pain in her heart created when she left Zimbabwe, you can all but see the blade and the unending ache. When Marvelous makes her feelings on returning to Zimbabwe known, it’s with the regal force of a golden battalion. When Cooper offers up a song that evokes the title, she ties together the play’s multiple strands with crystalline beauty.

Young’s Donald is relatively quiet — almost inconsequential — among the women until a gut-punch of a monologue that brilliantly reaches back to a seemingly throw-away bit of advice offered earlier and gives the audience a shattering new perspective on Auntie Anne’s entire trip to the U.S.

And as the bride at the heart of this indelible, Shelley’s Tendi provides the nexus around which Gurira’s beautiful family and their unexpected world whirl.

Catey Sullivan is a local freelance writer.