The Waterfall – 13 February 2026

Striking at the heart of the purpose of gender, The Waterfall explores the conflict between what a woman can be biologically and what a woman might want for herself through the lens of a Haitian mother (Patrice Johnson Chevannes) and her first generation American daughter (Natalie Paul). The story centers around the idea of things people just know in their core and how it shapes what they see for themselves. The mother, Emi, receives visitors from the past and can see the future in her visions of the ancestral waterfall where she grew up. She knows in her bones that everything she sees there is right and true. Her daughter, Bean, doesn’t see the waterfall or receive visitors who have passed on, but she knows some things in her bones as well—namely that she doesn’t want to have children. Conflict erupts when Bean finds the courage to tell Emi she has had her tubes tied and is very sure that she’s going to keep them that way. Emi believes motherhood is the highest calling in a woman’s life, and is very hurt that Bean doesn’t want to continue the family lineage. Bean, for her part, wants to make different choices than those her mother has laid out for her and has started to doubt that the path she has taken through life has truly been her own.

The Waterfall occupied two contrasting spaces: a place to laugh and a place to cry. From the beginning, Patrice Johnson Chevannes played Emi’s sense of humor as all encompassing. She felt it in her body and her energy and enthusiasm filled the whole room to the very brim. As the show progressed, it devolved into arguments leaving both characters in tears. The audience began to identify with Bean more, and though the reconciliation at the end was touching, it also felt very expected and offered a full sense of closure. The same play would have been more impactful if ended with a little bit of mystery—perhaps at the point of Emi’s rejection, or at the end of the scene where Bean smokes and reflects on her father and Emi brings her a plate. The ending in which Bean physically goes to the waterfall in Haiti and is validated by her ancestors, though certainly a monumental moment, left everything too complete such that there was nothing left for the audience to perseverate on.

There were too many cycles of tearful arguments between Bean and Emi; after a while they began to blend together. A tighter script would have really helped this production, as would the boldness of including other characters. Though Bean and Emi were the only real people in each other’s world, it would have helped the story maintain the momentum from its riotous beginning if some of the characters who were mentioned and really fleshed out (ex. Richard, Bean’s father) were actual participants in the story. Fresh faces and their sides of the stories would have been an impactful inclusion, especially in a story that spent a lot of time fixated on what men want and whether or not women should deliver it for that reason alone.

The set (Teresa Williams) for this show was really intriguing, as different features popped under different lighting (Venus Gulbranson). Sound (Kaileykielle Hoga, DJ Potts) thoughtfully carried the audience through costume (Dina El-Aziz) changes in ways that were more meaningful than just going to blackout for people to change. The lyrics of songs selected for transitions were spot on, and the choice to light a each character’s chair to have their presence linger on after the scene tied things together very nicely.

Overall, The Waterfall got off to a great start with Emi’s sick sense of humor and Bean’s devotion to her, but after many tearful scenes and several false endings, deteriorated into repetitive arguments that were no longer adding to the story. The acceptance in the end was beautiful, but also led to too neat a wrap up, negating some of the powerful questions the audience could have left thinking about. Both actresses are truly fantastic, and their performances evoke cultural and generational differences in a really stirring way—the play could mean so much more if it embraced the possibility of a more ambiguous ending.

I attended this performance on a press pass from Vivacity Media Group.