When Claudia receives a blond, white baby doll as a gift, she terrorizes and destroys it with zeal, for she hates its perceived “beauty.” The character is impulsive, quick to anger, and she has her reasons for it, though adult characters don’t often see the logic in her thinking. The sisters’ family situation is more stable and caring than Pecola’s, though their mother, played by Tanya Freeman, is also very fussy, which provides the play with some lightness and humor. Claudia and Frieda’s outfits change with the season, giving the audience a point of reference in a story that jumps back and forth in time.
The story of The Bluest Eye is primarily told by Claudia and Frieda, played by Brittany Deneen Hines and Kerri Garrett, two feisty sisters around Pecola’s age who don’t completely grasp why the bleak circumstances are unfolding. This material would be heavy and unbearable, except that the play, directed by Ibi Owolabi, captures the same voice and wit in its narration as the novel. Garrett) will rape and impregnate her before its end. The play - as with the book before it - lets us know in the opening moments that Pecola’s father Cholly (Dai’Sean L. Pecola prays to God for blue eyes in the hope that the world will see her, that someone will love her. Pecola studies Dick and Jane books for early readers, identifying how the white, blue-eyed Jane is adored within the stories, surrounded by adoring parents and friends who always want to play with her. She believes in her ugliness because of how her community in 1940s Lorain, Ohio, ignores her. Niara Simone Robinson, a recent New York University graduate, makes a powerful Atlanta debut, bringing heartbreaking vulnerability to a character much younger than the actress.
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