I AM DELIVERD’T Dallas Theater Center

My thoughts on Jonathan Norton’s I AM DELIVERED’T or …praise in the parking lot.

As the song says, “You gotta have faith,” and Jonathan Norton’s I AM DELIVERD’T is all about faith. Faith in God. Faith in friends. Faith in love. Faith that everything will be alright. And everything is most definitely alright in this heartfelt, touching. and often wildly funny comedy that focuses on four black LQBTQ characters whose lives and loves we learn about on Good Friday in the parking lot of the New Jerusalem Missionary Baptist Church in the South Oak Cliff area of Dallas. Through Jonathan Norton’s gift for dialogue and storytelling and Robert Barry Fleming’s skillful direction, the parking lot becomes a place for catharsis, forgiveness, soul cleansing, and fun.

And what a parking lot it is! Jason Ardizzone-West’s set is meticulously detailed. It’s wonderfully realistic. There are security cameras and even gutters and drainpipes on the faded brick exterior walls of New Jerusalem and everything is enhanced by Yuki Link’s lighting.

Norton’s play is a great big heart and Liz Mikel as Sis is its beating center. Sis projects strength, but there is much pain in her past and she has built a wall around herself. This is yet another brilliant performance from Mikel. She is excellent portraying Sis’s tough, stubborn exterior as leader of the Usher Board of the church. Spouting expletives and dressed in black, she is in command. Later, as Sis’s wall begins to break down and her past trauma is revealed, Mikel is genuinely moving.

Part of Sis’s past is Breedlove played by the remarkable E. Faye Butler. Butler first appears on stage in a comic frenzy, having been overwhelmed by the Holy Spirit. Breedlove and Sis had an attraction to each other decades ago and neither woman has gotten over it. Breedlove has also built a wall around herself that love brings down. Watching two great actors like Mikel and Butler banter, bluster, and bare their souls is a rare treat and one of the many pleasures of the play.

Zachary J. Willis, coming off an unforgettable performance as Columbia in DTC’s Rocky Horror, proves once again that he is one of the most formidable actors around. Here he is Pickles, a prominent usher at New Jerusalem who is currently enamored of a member of the congregation named Zeno. Pickles is afraid to reveal his homosexuality. So afraid, that he even hides his gift for singing. When Willis sings a bar of “Not While I’m Around” to his friend and mother figure Sis, it will make you wish that there was going to be yet another production of Sweeney Todd in DFW. Willis makes Pickles uptight and officious and hysterically funny. The amazingly limber Willis acts with his entire body and can get a laugh by simply walking across the stage. Add Pickles to the list of unforgettable characters created by this beyond talented actor.

Late in the play, Zeno’s ex , the out and proud Effie shows up at New Jerusalem. Naiqui Macabroad takes this smaller, yet pivotal, role and runs with it or maybe I should say twirls with it. (You will know when you go) Macabroad’s Effie is flamboyant and thoroughly gay. Effie and Pickles, though both supposedly smitten with the unseen Zeno, appear to have a budding attraction to each other. The gifted Macabroad, who has tremendous stage presence, takes a gay stereotype and gives Effie depth of character and charisma.

I AM DELIVERD’T has much to say about the struggle of being both gay and Christian. It is a struggle that continues. Norton’s own background and the love he has for these characters give the play both truth and tenderness. There is a strategy here. You will laugh so much, you won’t realize you’re getting a lesson, a sort of fun Sunday School for adults.

At the preview performance I attended the audience was standing and thundering its approval the moment the play ended. Director Robert Fleming and Playwright Jonathan Norton have DELIVERD’T an entertaining, memorable, and poignant play. Make plans to attend the next sermon at New Jerusalem. An usher will show you to your seat.