Impossible dreams in the land of the free

It’s easy to forget that not long ago living your life openly in America was an impossible dream, especially if you wanted to remain employed or, in some places, alive. That idea may have been on Naomi Wallace’s mind when she penned her taut, harrowing drama And I and Silence, playing at the Pershing Square Signature Center under Caitlin McLeod’s direction. With a strong cast and sensitively written script, this play examines a brutal period in American history that’s not as distant as we’d like to think. Wallace volleys the story’s action between two years. The play opens in 1959 in a small room furnished with a single bed and little more than a sink and a couple of wash basins. Dee (Samantha Soule), who is white, and Jamie (Rachel Nicks), who is black, have set up house in an unnamed American city. Work is hard to come by after spending several years in prison, where Dee and Jamie met and became friends. But both of them have dreams as big as the sky, even if those dreams include just getting jobs as house servants, earning some money, and meeting a couple of nice fellas, preferably brothers, so maybe they can all live together in one happy home. “Always loved it when you said maybe,” says Jamie. “Cause that always meant yes.”