Two one-act plays, From the Boot of Timberland and Good Brother, written by mother-daughter pair Robin Marshall and Monet Marshall, respectively, are being presented together at Common Ground Theatre for the upcoming production by the MOJOAA theater group called “In Their Shoes: An Evening of Theatre Exploring Violence Against Women.” The plays each stand alone but have been combined to elicit additional meaning from each. Together, they illustrate the painful reasons why domestic violence must be stopped.
“Theater is going to make you feel, and it’s not always going to make you feel good,” said Monet Marshall, who also directs the production. “I want people to understand that violence against women is a problem. That’s my hope—that it really hits home to them.”
Monet Marshall and her family moved from New York to North Carolina in 2012, after which they started the black theater company MOJOAA in February 2014—named for the three children in the family: Monet, Jordan and Aaron. “In Their Shoes” is the first of three productions the performing arts company will be holding in its inaugural year.
Robin Marshall, the patriarch of the family, wrote and won awards for From the Boot of Timberland as a graduate student. Featuring an all-female cast, it chronicles a teenage girl named Corinne who is in a coma after being severely beaten by her boyfriend. While in the coma, she meets various strangers who give her options to escape the abusive situation, through life or through death.
Monet Marshall more recently wrote Good Brother, which takes place in the same world as Timberland and features some of the same characters. It contrasts the sister play, though, by having an all-male cast to examine the issue of domestic violence from a different point of view. It follows a public defender who fights for justice for black men but has a hidden secret related to abuse.
“We’re trying to show that from the guy’s perspective that we believe that this is a serious issue as well,” said Terrance McAllister, who acts in Good Brother.
The plays have been rehearsed and produced separately, but Marshall explained that showing them together in one evening adds additional value and meaning to each of them.
“They are both complete stories without each other, but together they tell a more complete story of women’s empowerment,” Monet Marshall said. “You see one and you see the other, and it gives you a new understanding of the other play.”
Marshall also said the casts have held discussions about domestic violence as part of their development process. They shared their personal experiences with domestic violence or incidences that have happened to people close to them.
McAllister’s character is a 17-year-old boy who is in a relationship with the main female character in Timberland and beats her into a coma. He is subsequently convicted of assault and put into jail. McAllister explained that the character is an example of a man who feels justified in what he did because he was trying to assert his dominance.
“The situation is that he feels that people look at him like he’s broke or he can’t provide for himself,” McAllister said. “That makes him feel like less of a man. That messes with his pride, especially as a young man.”
The message the play sends against domestic violence also has a personal meaning for one of the actresses of Good Brother. Seema Kukreja—a local Indian actress whose character in the play advises the girl to chose death over abuse—said that her late father and brother advocated for marriages without the cultural practice of dowry in India. Domestic abuse, both physical and mental, is frequently related to dissatisfaction over dowry payments. Kukreja’s family took a stand to end the practice.
“On their wedding invitations, all it said was that only flowers would be exchanged. There would be no exchange of money,” Kukreja said of her brother and father. “That was a very big step that [they] took… If they could do this, then the rest of the young generations can do it as well.”
She said she hopes the play can be a tribute to her father and the example he set as an effort to curb a practice that often leads to domestic abuse.
Marshall said the aim of the plays is to teach the audience how to think about domestic violence, not what to think about it, and start conversation that will help to solve the issue.
“It hits close to home for so many people,” she said.
“In Their Shoes: An Evening of Theatre Exploring Violence Against Women” opens Friday, Oct. 3 and runs through Oct. 5, and again from Oct. 9 to Oct. 11 at Common Ground Theatre. Students can receive a $5 discount the first weekend by using the code “No More” when purchasing tickets.
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