Confederates at Redwist – Theater Review

Confederates by playwright Dominique Morrisseau and directed by Aaron Reese Boseman is the level of writing and performance I hope to see when attending a play.

This intimate drama at Redtwist Theater delivers a message of unconscious bias and institutional slavery put into motion generations ago and still very much alive and grappled with today on both sides of the racial divide.

The expert handling of this somewhat complex storyline along with the requisite dialog in both academic and historic vernacular is superb. Each of these actors have literally consumed their roles by internalizing the material and performing with total believability, naturalness and nuance.

This is the style of acting that I yearn for . . .

How is it that this superb production is hiding away in a thirty-seat storefront theater in Edgewater? Someone needs to gather up this show with this company and put them in a bigger venue with a larger audience. Both the performers and the story deserve to be seen and heard.

Director Aaron Reese Boseman who also directed The House That Will Not Stand at Invictus last year has once again superbly handled subjects of misogyny and race relations within a kind of supernatural context with clarity and vision.

Confederates is at Redtwist Theater, 1044 W. Bryn Mawr, Chicago through March 8, 2026. Runtime is 90 minutes with no intermission. Visit redtwisttheatre.org for tickets and information.

Be sure to click through and listen to the entire podcast theater review – – about 5 minutes.