‘Immediate Family' flips the script on who feels unwelcome

'Immediate Family' runs through Sept. 7 at Booth Playhouse, 130 N. Tryon St.

This review by longtime Charlotte arts critic Lawrence Toppman was published by The Charlotte Ledger on Aug. 11, 2025. You can find out more about The Charlotte Ledger’s commitment to smart local news and information and sign up for our newsletter for free here. Ledger subscribers can add the Toppman on the Arts newsletter on their “My Account” page.

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Review: ‘Immediate Family’ is a witty, heartfelt look at race, sexuality and family conflict, overcoming a few clunky plot devices with lively dialogue and a nuanced ending

“Immediate Family,” directed by Phylicia Rashad, portrays a Chicago family whose celebration is upended by secrets and shifting loyalties. (Photo by Marc J. Franklin)

by Lawrence Toppman

Two decades ago, Phylicia Rashad won a Tony Award as the matriarch in “A Raisin in the Sun,” a nearly all-Black drama about an African-American family planning to move to a prosperous Chicago neighborhood and cope with white neighbors’ uneasiness over their arrival.

This year, she’s directing “Immediate Family,” a nearly all-Black comedy-drama about an African-American family living in a prosperous Chicago neighborhood and trying to cope with their uneasiness about a white guy’s arrival.

The more things change, even when given a humorous touch in Paul Oakley Stovall’s fast-flowing play, the more they stay the same. In this case, though, divisions fall not just along racial lines but sexual ones. And as in “Raisin,” we’re left with the knowledge that some characters will have to try tolerance on for size and may not be able to make it fit.

The set by Paul Tate dePoo III creates a space that’s hominess, stretching from a nook for card players to a trellised garden, belies the fact that almost nobody quite feels at home. The late parents of the Bryant family, the Rev. Jesse and his unnamed wife, beam down from a perennially lit painting, though only one daughter remembers them with unwavering fondness.

Eldest child Evy (Christina Sajous), whose controlling behavior and conservative religious views may have estranged her unseen husband, is overseeing the upcoming wedding of youngest son Tony (Freddie Fulton). Long-absent brother Jesse (Elijah Jones), whose homosexuality remains an awkwardly unmentioned “secret,” arrives about the same time as Ronnie (Britney Coleman), a half-sister unacknowledged by the Rev. Jesse as his child but accepted by his kids.

The emotional pot simmers among this quartet, with an occasional stirring by openly gay neighbor Nina (Kai Almeda Heath). It boils over when Jesse’s de facto husband, Kristian (Andy Mientus), a Swedish-born photographer, comes to shoot Tony’s wedding. He and Jesse finally have to decide what their relationship means to each of them, and family members — especially the stunned Evy and surprisingly racist Tony — have to decide whether to embrace Kristian.

The actors all successfully walk the fine line between exuberance and exaggeration: They’re full of life, not larger than life, and this adds to the pressure-cooker feeling that builds toward the climax. We sympathize in varying degrees with everyone, especially the unusually patient Kristian and the anxiously wavering Jesse. Stovall premiered his play in 2012, when gay marriage was more of a flashpoint nationally; in this version, 13 years later, the issue becomes less important than the way the characters show their love or lack of it.

Stovall hasn’t worked out some problems in construction. Behavior depends on an uncharged cell phone or voicemails that didn’t get heard. He shoves everyone else offstage clumsily, so Evy and Kristian get a long scene together, and I didn’t believe card players would unconcernedly stick to their game during an audible shouting match in the kitchen. When Tony reveals a secret that could rock the family, it quickly gets brushed aside.

But the clever, credible and pointed dialogue gets us over rough patches, and small gestures of reconciliation in the second act don’t prevent us from seeing ambiguities in the satisfying ending. Like the family in “Raisin,” most of these characters are about to journey to a place that may bring them joy or pain.

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If You’re Going

The run of “Immediate Family” has been extended through Sept. 7 at Booth Playhouse, 130 N. Tryon St. Shows are at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday-Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday and 1:30 p.m. Sunday. Other shows are at 7:30 p.m. on Aug. 12 and 7 p.m. Aug. 17.

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Lawrence Toppman covered the arts for 40 years at The Charlotte Observer before retiring in 2020. Now, he’s back in the critic’s chair for the Charlotte Ledger — look for his reviews several times each month in the Charlotte Ledger.

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