Cut Flowers
Lawrence’s stint working in a flower shop in the late 80s inspired the play’s setting: the back room of Benson’s, a large white-owned floral business. The play covers a single day in the life of six black men who work in close quarters, invisible to the white customers and clerks out front, preparing fresh flowers for display. The flowers must be cut upon arrival–otherwise they die quickly. Cutting gives them new life. And the men’s cutting away of secrets and inhibitions ultimately regenerates them as well. Each has suffered some sort of heartbreak, which opens a door and reveals a skeleton.
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There are a few false notes in the script: Kyle “spontaneously” delivers monologues that are as deliberate and practiced as any Jesse Jackson sermon. But these moments are few in a play that otherwise offers a rare and textured portrait of working-class black men. Devon Love designed the realistic set, and Henry Hampton Floral in the South Loop provides the flowers for each show–a striking element of the stage picture.
