“Seem Like We All Outgrowing This Space” Rays of sun break through the Earth’s atmosphere
not-quite-public quality of daily life for the Rhodes
over Texas. Mingling with moisture carried in the
family and their Third Ward neighbors on July 2,
air from the Gulf of Mexico, these rays bare down,
1976, this play is—among other things —about
meeting few obstacles as they barrel towards an
seeing things clearly. It splits open those moments
alley between the shotgun-style rowhouses of
in life when you can no longer avoid seeing your
Houston’s Third Ward. They hit concrete, grass, and
children, your parents, your lovers, your friends,
a child’s open eyes. They ricochet and create a heat
and your place in the world as they really are,
so intense you can see the waves rippling at the end
laying bare the concurrent pain and beauty of
of the alley. They warm the pavement beneath the
such junctures. As what was once a capital of
child’s back, as she stares up at an airplane. They
Black Texan life is increasingly abandoned by
mix with the smoke rising from a carefully tended
the public and private sectors of a city proudly
charcoal grill. They nourish a seedling recently
proclaiming its unprecedented prosperity, the
planted in a flower box, and budling leaves poke
Black community members of the Third Ward’s
through the soil into a summer air carrying the fuzzy
rowhouses find themselves at crossroads both
radio sound of Aretha Franklin’s newest single,
personal and political. Each character must balance
“Something He Can Feel,” which has held its own at
their commitments to themselves and to their
the top of the Soul charts for the past few weeks.
community, their love for their home and their
Droplets from a watering can greet the plant, and
agony at feeling stuck there. What will this post-
its chlorophyl shines green. Things grow here. The
Vietnam, pre-Reagan era offer them? What do they
days may be brutally long, opportunities may be
owe the seeds they have carefully planted in the
increasingly fleeting as Houston’s “economic Golden
alley’s rare but precious soil? What do they owe the
Age” leaves its poor Black communities behind,
soil itself?
and the patterns of daily life may seem as stifling as the summer heat itself. But things grow here. And people nurture them.
Things grew in the Third Ward in 1976, and things grow there now, in 2023. Our play, which is presented to you at a state in its development not
comfort ifeoma katchy’s The Alley drops us
dissimilar to the summer budling, is inundated with
into a day both ordinary and life-changing for
heat: from the sun, from the flame of a barbecue,
its characters, and, in the playwright’s words,
from these characters’ passions. That heat will be
“historicizes a community that deserves to be
either destructive or generative. Or it could be both.
historicized.” Introducing the not-quite-private,
The Alley
—A.B. Orme, Production Dramaturg
Project Row Houses is a Houston non-profit dedicated to preserving and, where necessary, restoring the cultural history of the Third Ward’s row house district through community initiatives, neighborhood development, and arts programming. Learn more about the future of the Rhodes’ home at projectrowhouses.org.
LANGSTON HUGHES FESTIVAL OF NEW WORK | 2023–24 SEASON