Caroline, or Change

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The title pun on which Tony Kushner builds Caroline, or Change is inspired -- another cogent example of the visionary dramatist's genius. It's such a find that Kushner himself may still be marveling at its profound simplicity.

The central action involves Noah Gellman (Harrison Chad), who's required by his stepmother Rose (Veanne Cox) to donate the coins he leaves in his soiled clothes to the family's laconic cleaning lady, Caroline Thibodeaux (Tonya Pinkins). Whereas Noah sees the sacrifice less as a punishment and more as a devious means by which to buy his way into a family livelier than his own, Caroline sizes up the tactic as a foolish employer's disregard for a worker's dignity. The [...]

A 39-year old divorcee with four kids, Caroline Thibodeaux is a black maid living in Louisiana in 1963 and she's being confronted with change -- two kinds, in particular. There's a new world on the horizon, visible in the social upheaval of the Civil Rights movement, which Caroline seems determined not to notice. But then there's a more immediate sort of change that she can't ignore: nickels and dimes and quarters, resting at the bottom of a cup. The kind of change that could help a mother give her kids a better life.

Caroline spends much of her day in a dank basement, washing, drying, and ironing clothes for the Gellman family while listening to the radio. Young Noah Gellman, who cheris[...]