two-hander

The play, a two-hander directed by Tinashe Kajese-Bolden, concerns two bracingly intelligent Black cousins who grew up together but whose lives have diverged.

This idea is at the core of a.k. payne’s moving two-hander, which stars DeWanda Wise and Kacie Rogers as estranged cousins — one on a three-day furlough from prison, another an Ivy League graduate on a break from her tech job — who reunite in their hometown for a funeral.

“She’s a different person, exhausted and in disbelief that she’s back dealing with this person, and you’re devastated by his loneliness, how badly he wants to connect and how that got twisted. There was so much to excavate. We shot for four days in a room. It felt like a two-hander play.”

This two-hander zooms in on the relationship of two cousins, one on a three-day furlough from prison to attend a family funeral.

“Grass,” Victoria sighs brainlessly, and she checks out from reality again, unaware that vapid admission has cast her in the grim two-hander playing in her frantic husband's head.