IF YOU GOWhat: “Long Time Since Yesterday.”When: 8 p.m. Saturday, 4 p.m. Sunday.Where: C.C. Bond Human-ities Building, Chattanooga State Community College, 4501 Amnicola Highway.Admission: $15 adults, $12 groups (all tickets $20 day of show).Phone: 242-5156.Website: www.destinyentertainment.org.GIRLS NIGHT OUT”Long Time Since Yesterday” will team with Mocha Restaurant and Music Lounge, 3116 Brainerd Road, for a Girls Night Out on Saturday. For information, call 242-5156 or visit www.destinyentertainment.org.
What do you really know about your closest friends? Perhaps not as much as you think.
Five former college classmates come to realize that in the Destiny Theatre Company production of “Long Time Since Yesterday,” which will be staged Saturday and Sunday in the C.C. Bond Humanities Building at Chattanooga State Community College.
The all-female drama, directed by Keith Franklin of Atlanta and starring actors from Atlanta and Chattanooga’s Ikeko Bass, is co-produced by the New African Grove Theatre Company of Atlanta in association with the theater department at Chattanooga State.
It was written by P.J. Gibson.
Set in suburban New Jersey in the early 1980s, the story focuses on a reunion of five black former college classmates — now prosperous, professional women in their 30s — at the funeral of a sixth friend, who killed herself but who is seen in flashbacks.
The wake for the dead friend gives the other five the opportunity to confront the truth about their own lives and about the suicide that has brought them together.
“It’s not a period piece,” said Franklin. “The drama has nothing to do with the times. It’s more about the fact you don’t really know your friends, what kind of baggage they’re carrying, what informs their lives.”
Though sex, race politics and gender are a part of their discussion — the play is suggested for mature audiences — it is more about the idealism of youth meeting the reality of the world, he said.
“That’s true for all generations,” Franklin said. “You think you’re going to change the world, but life kind of hits you.”
Although the play is written by a black playwright and has an all-black cast, it “is for every race and gender,” a news release said.
“The lesson to draw from this,” according to Franklin, “is to understand that people have pasts — things that have nothing to do with you — and [those pasts] inform how they react about certain things. [People should] know that there’s more to a person than what you see and allow for that.”