Stephanie Berry (in chair) and KiKi Layne in On Sugarland.
Photo: Joan Marcus
Aleshea Harris’s On Sugarland takes place in a small cul-de-sac at the end of Tiparoo Lane. It’s more than a dead end: It’s a dying end, where all the death in a small Southern town collects like water from a drainspout. People do live on Tiparoo, but they’re Black and poor and the military scoops them up for service, usually sending them home in boxes. Once they’re home, they’re memorialized in Sugarland, a yard-show cenotaph made from army boots and painted bicycle wheels and dog-tag chandeliers. Sugarland’s folk-art grotto fills a single mobile home’s front garden, but everyone still manages to fit inside for the community…
