THE STORY: MIXED BABIES is set in Oklahoma City in the mid 1970s. Reva, a black girl of sixteen, and four of her friends are having a slumber party. The girls are in the process of discovering who they are in terms of themselves, their race and their womanhood. Reva believes that she will be able to find something special in herself by embracing her African heritage. In the pursuit of that Reva wants to undergo a “Rite of Passage” that she has found in a book on African cultures. Her friends, Andee, who’s happy to simply be a middle-class teenaged girl, Thommie, who chooses from week to week what race she wants to be, Dena, who’s exploring sex as a means of self-definition, and Shalanda, who is shy, a compulsive eater and who looks up to the others in her search for “how to be,” regard Reva’s plan skeptically but agree to help. The Rite of Passage proceeds sloppily and goes unfinished, but Reva gains something from it and as the morning dawns she may be beginning her life as a woman.
MIXED BABIES was the winner of the 1991 Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding New Play.
“Ms. Lampley’s dialogue is remarkable for the way it maintains an exuberant comic tone while defining each character and giving her a social and political dimension.” —The New York Times.
Included in the collection
Manhattan Class Company Class One-Acts, 1992.
