Her plays, however, are another thing entirely. In a body of work written over the last four decades, Kennedy has created a surreal world in which romantic innocents are threatened by the persistent presence of racism. Rage lurks beneath the surface. Time is all topsy-turvy. History is fluid.
Violence is inevitable.
There's the person getting ready to walk out now and teach, and there's the person who writes the plays. I don't know that person, although I've come to trust her. I'm a mystery to myself. Produced by the American Repertory Theatre, it stars Denise Nicholas. In the piece, a writer named Suzanne Alexander returns to her alma mater to deliver a lecture and, in the process, unearths the devastating secrets of her own past.