‘Mrs. Harrison’: Movable mosaic of a showdown in an upscale bathroom

Review: R. Eric Thomas's densely stitched two-hander play at Portland Center Stage raises a complex tapestry of questions about race, friendship, and storytelling.
Mirror, mirror, on the wall: Cycerli Ash (left) and Claire Rigsby in R. Eric Thomas's Mrs. Harrison at Portland Center Stage. Photo: Jingzi Zhao
Mirror, mirror, on the wall: Cycerli Ash (left) and Claire Rigsby in R. Eric Thomas’s Mrs. Harrison at Portland Center Stage. Photo: Jingzi Zhao

Portland Center Stage’s new staging of Mrs. Harrison, which was written by R. Eric Thomas and had its world premiere in 2018, is as intricate as a medieval tapestry. As directed by Tiffany Nichole Greene, every word, gesture, glance and sound is woven together with the others to create a complex and controversial whole.

Seeing the show is not a passive experience where audiences sit back to be entertained. Instead, it reminded me of studying the 16th century “The Lady and the Unicorn” wall hangings, with their elaborate designs featuring forests of foliage and fanciful creatures with inscrutable expressions. At roughly 70 minutes, the drama is short and features just two actors, but most of that time is densely stitched with increasingly tense dialogue that requires close attention if you want to catch it all.

Such concentration is rewarded at every turn, because the production’s two performers are adept at using subtle body language that tells a story as much as the script does, as when Aisha (Cycerli Ash) crosses her arms and turns away as if to protect herself from the probing conversation that Holly (Claire Rigsby) persists in pursuing. And beyond that narrative, Thomas’s play suggests numerous theories about race, friendship, and storytelling itself for audiences to consider long after they’ve left the theater.

The setting for the show is an unlikely place: the fancy faculty bathroom at a prestigious university, where the two women have returned for their 10-year reunion. Aisha, who is Black, is a successful playwright; Holly is a white struggling standup comedian. Although they’re circling around each other in a lavatory, playing cat and mouse for the entire production, this is no truck-stop potty, but a space so elegant, I wish my living room looked as nice as Derek Easton’s scenic design, with its lavender-striped wallpaper, graceful white settee, and elegant wood stall doors. It’s ironic, then, that this pristine, most assuredly germ-free space eventually becomes a Petri dish crawling with insinuations, accusations, and arguments that erupt, finally, into flaming emotion.

Showdown in an upscale bathroom: Claire Rigsby (left) and Cycerli Ash. Photo: Jingzi Zhao
Showdown in an upscale bathroom: Claire Rigsby (left) and Cycerli Ash. Photo: Jingzi Zhao

At first, neither woman acknowledges knowing the other, but Holly is full of jangling energy and moves her limbs around the room with an insistence that assaults the air as she follows Aisha, pressing her to acknowledge what Holly sees as “the truth”: that the two women were once in a playwriting class together, that they were close friends, and that Aisha took a tragic story from Holly’s life and turned it into a successful play. In a room full of mirrors, she’s so anxious for Aisha to see her both literally and metaphorically that she jumps up and down at one point in frustration.

For her part, Aisha makes her own jabs, as when she offers Holly a dollar bill, supposedly mistaking her for a restroom attendant. Divinely dressed by costume designer Lucy Wells in a blue silk jumpsuit worn with striking gold jewelry and gold strappy sandals reminiscent of Carrie Bradshaw’s Louboutins in Sex and the City, Aisha plays it cool through much of the drama, acting as if it would take a lot more than being needled about the past to ruffle her exquisite feathers, which only further disturbs Holly. 

Did the story of Aisha’s play, which involves a Black woman, ever belong to Holly? And does Holly even have a right to tell it from her white perspective? Thomas, who is Black, intentionally doesn’t offer neat answers – everything is open to interpretation, and when he wrote Mrs. Harrison, he told WHYY’s Billy Penn, he identified more with Holly.

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Although Thomas may not want us to take sides, Holly lost me when she talked about coming home from school one day as a child and calling out to “my maid” for a piece of orange. Really? She couldn’t get up and walk to the kitchen herself? Of course, I’m seeing the character through my experience of growing up in a middle-class, maid-less household. For Thomas, though, our individual reactions to the characters are valid.

The magic trick of an ending might be maddening for some, but I loved the jolt of it. After all the building strife, the production shocks us beyond Holly and Aisha’s rift with the help of splendid stormy sounds and lights (designed, respectively, by Phil Johnson and Alexz Trent Eccles) that had been building throughout the show. The two actors then take their bows to the sound of Rihanna singing her 2010 song “Only Girl (in the World).” 

Mrs. Harrison offers no promises, but we’re invited to wonder what would happen if both women – and for that matter, all of us — quit acting like we’re the only people in the world and acknowledged the validity of each other’s existence. 

*** 

“Mrs. Harrison” continues through Feb. 16 at PCS’s U.S. Bank Mainstage in The Armory, 128 N.W. 11th Ave. For tickets, visit https://www.pcs.org/mrs-harrison.

A nominee for six Pushcart awards, Linda Ferguson writes poetry, fiction, essays, and reviews. Her latest chapbook, "Not Me: Poems About Other Women," was published by Finishing Line Press. As a creative writing teacher, she has a passion for building community and helping students explore new territory.

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