This was our first visit to The Sheen Center for Thought & Culture, tucked away in NoHo, and it immediately felt like a venue with a clear point of view. It seems like it is somewhere more interested in putting work on stage that makes you sit with uncomfortable ideas or themes, rather than chasing spectacle or easy entertainment. You go there to think as much as to watch.
Dust of Egypt fits that brief perfectly.
It opens up a question that is hard to shake. How far away is slavery, really? We talk about it like it belongs to another world, but it does not. It is only a couple of hundred years ago. That is nothing. Sitting there, it is difficult not to feel a flicker of anger. If it is that recent, how far does the impact still reach? How many generations carry it forward? What does it do to a person to be told, over and over again, that they are worth less?
The play grounds all of this in a very human story. We follow Sojourner Truth (played with strength and emotion by Desi Waters) and her fight to reclaim her son, Peter (played skillfully by Eric Ruffin), who has been illegally sold into slavery in the South despite New York’s emancipation laws. It is not just a legal battle. It is a deeply personal one. A mother trying to get her child back from a system that has already decided who she is allowed to be.
There is something very effective about how simply this story is told. It is direct, almost old fashioned in its delivery. At times it feels a little too literal, but there is also an honesty in that approach. Nothing is hidden. Nothing is softened. The result is confronting, and at points genuinely unsettling.
A recurring image runs through the piece of a bird with its wings cut, or trapped in a cage. It is a clear metaphor, maybe even an obvious one, but it works. Freedom is not just about getting out. It is about being able to fly. We did find ourselves wanting them to push this further. There was an opportunity to deepen that imagery and really pull us into the emotional core of the story.
What the production gets right is its restraint. The staging is minimal, which gives the audience space to imagine the world for themselves. That is one of the reasons we still go to the theatre. It asks something of us. The costumes were particularly strong and helped ground everything clearly in time and place.
The projected backgrounds, though, felt like a misstep. Instead of opening things up, they closed them down. It is one of those moments where you feel the production does not quite trust the audience enough, and in doing so, it limits its own impact.
The performances across the board were solid. It is a tight, well rehearsed ensemble and the show runs with a kind of slick confidence. There were moments where the casting stretched belief a little, particularly with adult performers playing very young children, but these were small distractions rather than major issues.
What stays with you is the enduring power of story itself. The injustice of it. The fact that it is not ancient history. That it still feels close.
Dust of Egypt runs at The Sheen Center until March 29th 2026. More information and tickets here: https://www.sheencenter.org/events/detail/dust-of-egypt
We are giving this 3 / 5 Ds (D D D)
Cast
Desi Waters (Sojourner Truth)
Jade Cayne (Bell)
Eric Ruffin (Peter)
Mark McCullough Thomas (Solomon Gedney)
Jeanna Schweppe (Mrs. Gedney)
Nicholas Louis Turturro (Romeyn)
Eliott Johnson (Robert / Thomas)
Creative
Karin Abarbanel (Playwright)
Rhonda Passion Hansome (Director)
Emani Brielle Simpson (Executive Producer)
Mary Blackburn (Costume Design)
Scott Fettermen (Projections & Sound)
Maz Sailer (Lighting)
Winnie Chiang (Stage Manager)
Delfina Barbiero (Assistant Producer / Stage Manager)
Emiliano Pares / BB Props (Set & Props)
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