Harlem Duet is the story of the complex relationship of a Black couple, played out against the backdrop of three different periods in the American Black experience: in 1860, before the US Emancipation Proclamation; in 1928, during New York’s Harlem Renaissance; and in the post-civil rights world of 1997. Each setting reframes the story of the woman, her deep love for her partner, and her sacrifices, pain, revenge, and resilience when she is betrayed by him. Each era’s cultural and social backdrop plays a unique part in how each couple’s story develops – and ends. And, as in Shakespeare’s Othello, a strawberry-embroidered handkerchief plays a significant part in each story.

First, a note about names. In 1997, the lead characters are Billie and her partner Othello. In 1928, as vaudeville players, the two characters are called “She” and “He”. And in 1860, as servants, they are “Her” and “Him”.

The majority of the action occurs in 1997. Billie and Othello have been together for nine years, living in an apartment in Harlem. Billie is a graduate student and Othello is a professor who has recently achieved tenure over a white man named Chris Yago. Othello has fallen in love with a colleague, a white woman named Mona, and has recently left Billie for her.

Also part of the 1997 story are Billie’s friends: her landlady, Magi, her sister-in-law Amah (married to Billie’s brother), and her estranged father, Canada, who turns up unexpectedly. Billie is in deep pain over Othello’s choice to leave her for Mona, and everything that represents – and she makes a plan to make him pay.

The two other time periods are seen as a series of flashbacks throughout the unfolding of the 1997 events. When the action shifts to 1928, “He” is a classically trained actor, playing in blackface in a minstrel show. Again, “He” is involved with a white woman – a director named Mona – and “She” responds out of her pain and despair. And in the scenes set in Harlem in the early 1860s, the couple are servants in a white household. They have made a  plan to go north to Canada in search of a freer life. But at the last moment, “Him” decides he can’t leave his white mistress. And once again, the consequences of that choice are devastating.

Backgrounder: Guest Post by Dramaturg Stephen Drover

As a young Black theatre student, eagerly searching for plays that spoke to my cultural identity, Djanet Sears was one of the first Black Canadian playwrights I discovered. At that moment, I fell in love with her writing and her gorgeous storytelling about people who looked like me – and consequently I devoured everything “Djanet Sears” that I could get my hands on! To see yourself in plays and in the characters on stage is essential for all theatregoers, and I am so proud to bring this story and these complicated, full Black characters to life on the Bard stage, in this very special 25th anniversary of Harlem Duet!

Djanet so perfectly described her play as “a rhapsodic blues tragedy, exploring the effects of race and sex on the lives of people of African descent. It is a tale of love. A tale of Othello and his first wife, Billie. Set in 1860, 1928 and contemporary Harlem at the corner of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Boulevards.”

This story is timeless. It is a story about love and betrayal and more specifically it is a story centred on Blackness. Stories about Blackness, Black love, Black hurt, Black triumphs, Black lives, have been historically overlooked and under-produced in our Canadian theatrical landscape. And while this play is centred in Blackness, it is also universal. By opening up our scope to other cultures, other storytelling – we learn about ourselves and connect as humans though our differences.

In this story we see Billie fighting to find a way to end the cycle of generational trauma by invoking traditional black magic. We join Billie on her journey through the pain of Othello’s betrayal and subsequent devolution of her mental health. In Djanet Sears’ forward to this play she writes,

“I have a dream. A dream that one day in the city where I live, at any given time of the year, I will be able to find at least one play that is filled with people who look like me, telling stories about me, my family, my friends, my community. For most people of European descent, this is a privilege they take for granted.”

Please join me in this celebrating this iconic play – and all the talented theatre artists gathered to bring the best of themselves to this work in such a deep and brave way.

– Cherissa Richards, Director | April 2022