“History is a black woman, because she keeps having to repeat herself.”

There was so much to love about this show. The lead artist has such a beautiful, warm timbre. She has exactly the kind of powerful voice you need in an big venue like the Westbury. She beautifully captures the wide-eyed, naive energy of a child and young adult in her storytelling.

More storytelling shows need live accompaniment. Frankly, unless you are a very talented storyteller, it is hard for an audience to stay focussed on one person. The pianist offered a second character voice as well as a score that meshed with the storyteller to bring the story to life.

The structure of Rose-Ingrid’s story is well-planned. Time moves relatively linearly, but she moves us through poetry, song, and storytelling by turns in a natural way. I can tell that this show was workshopped for how smooth it is. The overall pacing was solid. I prefer a storytelling style that is more experimental and frenetic, but I still enjoyed this.

It is damn hard to fill up the Westbury without a large ensemble. I wish this show could’ve been in a smaller venue to match the intimate feel of the subject matter. As a person of colour, I am always hopeful that more racialized artists will show up to the Fringe. I want them to have audiences full of people of colour who understand our jokes and our experiences without the need of translation for a White gaze. This show wasn’t quite as radical in its racial politics as I usually prefer from art, but the storyteller’s unravelling around the BLM movement and the face of overwhelming obligations was so visceral and true to many of our shared, yet isolating agony during that time (and now) that I was plenty satisfied.