I know that’s an unconventional way to begin a review of a new work, but that’s the feeling that swept over me, watching Kathleen McGhee-Anderson’s deeply moving new play, Miss Maybelline’s Nocturnal Flight of Fancy, premiering at the Martha’s Vineyard Playhouse. This impressive playwright, a notable stage and TV screenwriter, has not only inherited the legacy of the greatest Black American dramatist of the twentieth century—August Wilson—but also has endowed it with her own distinctive voice and unique experience.

Rich in character, deep in theme, infused with music, and steeped in the history of Black America (like all Wilson’s plays), McGhee-Anderson sets her scene on a street in Oak Bluffs, a village on the island of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, that has been home to Black Americans for centuries. Like August Wilson’s Hill District in Pittsburgh (featured in Fences), School Street is a place that the playwright loves and knows well—and that intimate knowledge and emotional connection is powerful.

Miss Maybelline is a story of a neighborhood, a relationship, and a mystery that needs to be solved. The title character is a 110-year-old Vineyarder (“I might be 111,” she admits). She lives in a cottage on School Street (where the playwright’s own mother, who just turned 96, lived, and where the playwright spent her summers). It features life on Miss Maybelline’s porch, the gathering place on her street. There, she interacts with her neighbors, particularly Trey (Jamiel Burkhart), a teenage boy with autism. Trey’s overprotective mother Greta (Renee Elizabeth Wilson), who works at Martha’s Vineyard Hospital, struggles with the double burden of economic pressures and a special needs son, whom she stifles with her anxiety and concern. Unable to cope, Greta wants to sell the house and move to the mainland where life will be more manageable and she’ll get more support. Miss Maybelline tries to dissuade her, preaching to Greta of the value and dignity of owning a Vineyard house and passing it down from generation to generation to honor her ancestors, as she is doing with her own cottage. But to no avail.

So Miss Maybelline becomes Trey’s closest and constant companion. She gives him support, understanding, and unflagging attention to his passion for island birds, a subject in which he’s become an expert. He keeps a notebook containing research of the various subspecies, which he annotates throughout the play.

There’s also the character of Walter Bly (Jerry Clicquot), who owns the cottage between Miss Maybelline’s and Trey’s. He’s sweet on Greta, who doesn’t return his attention. A former band member and employee of the Steamship Authority, Walter is a caring neighbor and frequent visitor to Miss Maybelline’s porch, where he plays her piano while Miss Maybelline joyfully dances to “Ball & The Jack,” her favorite pastime. To show their devotion to her, Walter and Trey bond in an effort to solve the play’s mystery—namely, to identify the culprit who tied Miss Maybelline’s walker to the highest branch of a tree that hangs over her house. It’s a curious, arresting sight and focus of constant conversation throughout the play. 

Finally, there’s the fifth character, Elaine (Molly Purves), a conscientious, earnest islander who delivers meals-on-wheels to Miss Maybelline, which the latter enjoys dismissing abruptly. 

As in Wilson’s Fences, it’s the neighborhood and the interaction of these rich, wonderfully drawn characters that is the heart of the play. And it all unfolds on that colorful porch, designed by Sean Roach and built by Paul Munafo. But there’s an added, enhanced dimension to the story, that of mysticism, a frequent element in Wilson’s plays (especially Joe Turner’s Come and Gone and Gem of the Ocean). Miss Maybelline claims she has “sundowners,” a syndrome of the elderly who have dementia, wherein they experience nighttime hallucinations to which the play’s title (“flights of fancy”) refers. In Act One, after the sun has gone down, she dreams of going on a march, when she is seven, to the tune of the Battle Hymn of the Republic. 

But the major “flight of fancy” occurs, literally, in Act Two. Trey has dreamed of spotting an “oystercatcher”—a bird with which he’s obsessed but has never seen. He wants to spot it and record it in the notebook he has constructed so diligently. Miss Maybelline is determined to make that dream a reality. She discovers that Trey has never been “up-island” (the term referring to the remote, western part of Martha’s Vineyard) and the picturesque fishing village of Menemsha where oystercatchers can be spotted. Though the fearful Greta forbids it, Miss Maybelline and Trey mount the island bus at the top of Act Two for their flight of fancy. However, night descends and they miss the last bus back to Oak Bluffs; and, while Trey is searching the beach for his bird, Miss Maybelline suffers a fall and ends up in the hospital, where she experiences another flight of fancy. The rest I’ll leave for you to discover—except to hint that the mystery of the “walker in the tree” is solved in the most unexpected and mystical way.

These beautifully drawn characters are played by a uniformly superb ensemble, evoking portrayals that (like Wilson’s) are both endearing and unforgettable. As Miss Maybelline, Tonye Patano shines as the cantankerous centenarian, giving a charismatic performance graced with singing and dancing. As described by another character, “some people are just unique to this world”—and her performance merits this accolade, with her mixture of humor, spirit, and pugnacity that never descends into sentimentality. Jamiel Burkhart offers a beautifully crafted, deeply moving portrayal of Trey, whose autism is depicted not as a handicap, but rather as a gift that inspires and enriches his life. Jerry Clicquot offers a heartfelt portrayal of the compassionate Walter Bly, the consummate devoted neighbor. We empathize with Renee Elizabeth Wilson’s suffering Greta, and smile with recognition at Molly Purves’s Elaine, the caring neighbor that every community should have. MJ Bruder Munafo expertly directs this stellar ensemble with energy and sensitivity. 

If you’ve never been to the island of Martha’s Vineyard, this is an invaluable introduction to its beauty, its magic, and its fascinating history, as articulated by Miss Maybelline. She provides us with insight into the Black experience on the island that goes back hundreds of years, as well as numerous references to the island’s natural and mystical wonders—like “illumination night,” the annual event where Oak Bluff’s campgrounds are magically lit with lanterns, evoking the spirits of past inhabitants. 

The play’s authenticity and the genuine love that the playwright expresses for this special place will make you want to visit and discover its magic for yourself.