By Kwame Kwei-Armah

April 2015, American Conservatory Theater, San Francisco

Let There Be Love is an intimate and interesting family drama by Kwame Kwei-Armah, one of Britain’s most distinguished contemporary playwrights. Alfred, a cantankerous and aging West Indian immigrant living in London, has managed to alienate all those around him—including his equally headstrong lesbian daughter, with whom he rarely sees eye to eye. When an idealistic young Polish caregiver, new to the country, is assigned to look after him, he experiences a powerful reckoning with his past. Filled with the sumptuous jazz standards that pour forth from Alfred’s beloved gramophone and featuring a tour-de-force performance from stage and screen star Carl Lumbly, Let There Be Love explores the unrelenting grip of memory and regret as the Polish caregiver arranges for him to visit his former wife with their daughter who feels estranged from both and forgiveness that can happen. Visit A.C.T . . .

He was feeling good, was rather vigorous, on his feet, dancing with his caregiver after he drank the suicide potion when he welcomes death visualizing the life beyond. The author treats this as Alfred experiencing new possibilities as he collapses in the chair having died.

This support of the hemlock society is very incongruous. One does not enter eternal life by killing oneself. For believers, this is a direct highway to the furnace. Alfred was quite functional, in body and brain, fully alert, without pain. A man of God would have sung praises, as he ascended to the Pearly Gates to meet his Maker.

Unfortunately, Alfred is sliding down the slippery slope to a much warmer place.

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