The Peculiar Patriot

In The Peculiar Patriot, Liza Jessie Peterson accomplishes the most difficult of feats:

taking facts and statistics and giving them a human face. In this case, it is the harrowing

toll that the prison industrial complex has wrought upon communities of color.

Born of Peterson’s work with prison populations, The Peculiar Patriot is a story she has

been telling for twenty-five years. This run at NY Theatre Workshop’s In the Bricks

series will be the show’s last stop, and when it ends on June 14th, she plans to retire it.

We first meet Peterson’s Betsy Laquanda Ross in video form as she and her belongings

are searched at an unnamed prison in upstate New York. It is an invasive process with

her belt and jewelry being removed and personal items confiscated. Even her mouth is searched for contraband. She is there as a visitor.

Laquanda is sharp, smart, abrasive and working hard to educate herself in an

adversarial system. The show unfolds over the course of several visits to the prison and we see the toll of mass incarceration through her eyes. She is no stranger to being in

the system herself, having spent time in Juvvie when she was a teenager, where she

learned to quilt from her mentor Miss Jefferson. This is also the source of her nickname,

Betsy, as in Betsy Ross.

Each of Laquanda’s quilt squares represent an imprisoned friend or relative. Most were put behind bars for minor infractions, or not being able to afford a competent attorney. There is the woman sentenced to twelve years for grand larceny for using her babysitter’s address to send her children to a better school. Larry, a fifteen-year-old is sent to prison on false charges as revenge for testifying against the police in a police shooting. In Laquanda’s world, being innocent is no guarantee of staying out of a system where there are two sets of rules: one for wealthy white people, and one for poor people of color.

Director Talvin Wilks and Peterson have created a tightly paced show that makes use

of strategic silence, incisive comedy and vivid descriptions of the people who make up

Laquanda’s world. The projections by Katherine Free, sound design by Luqman Brown,

and scenic/lighting design by Andrew Cissna combine to evoke the claustrophobic

atmosphere of a tightly confined space with little personal autonomy.

In the two and half decades this show has travelled the world little has changed. We are still inundated by headlines of police shootings, unlawful prosecution, and injustice daily. Yet we root for Laquanda and her community even as we realize that mere cheerleading is far from enough. We must recognize injustice, and we must act. Peterson’s show opens our eyes to the high price of privilege, racism, and economic inequality. Once we see it there is no turning away.

The Peculiar Patriot Written and Performed by Liza Jessie Peterson, Produced by The

National Black Theatre in Association with Lena Waithe, runs through June 14th at NY

Theatre Workshops In the Bricks Series. For More Information Visit New York Theatre Workshop's website here Review By Wendy-Lane Bailey