Hambone

Victory Gardens Theater’s frist mainstage production of 2001 is Javon Johnson’s Hambone, set at a roadside diner in South Carolina in 1988. Despite his calm exterior, Bishop Tisdale’s spirit is heavy with resentment. The Confederate flag still hangs from the state capitol, Jesse Jackson is making history as the first black presidential candidate, and James Brown has been incarcerated. Spurring the action are frequenters of Bishop’s diner: Henry, Tyrone, Bobbilee, and Harrison. In the end, this is a generational play about four black men’s struggle for truth, their pain, healing, and renewal.