Incognito The Play

"Incognito" unfolds as a mystery, for both myself, and the audience, as I search for my biological father following the divorce of my mother and step-father. The show’s structure allows the audience to make their own discoveries in the moment along with me – discoveries about themselves, and their perceptions of identity and stereotypes.

Through my investigation and a quirk of fate, I am led to my father in a first phone call. It is during this call while in Detroit that he reveals he is black…a fact somehow lost as I was raised by my mother and adopted father. This life-changing information was also somehow hidden from me since I don’t "look black". (The audience and I make this physical discovery at the same time.)

My new-found African-American father tells me of family members who played significant roles in African-American history: a distant relation to the abolitionist John Brown; a great-great grandfather who served in the 54th regiment of the colored infantry during the Civil War; & a great grandfather who was an all-star pitcher in the Negro baseball leagues. He then tells me my grandparents are alive and living in Virginia.

Rocked by these revelations, I decide to journey to Virginia Beach to meet my adoring grandparents and mirror-image father for the first time. During this reunion, I am bestowed with a package of important family documents. Included in this treasure-trove of ancestral history are handwritten letters my mother wrote, detailing her mental angst in making the decision to leave my father and return to her parents home, raising me as white.

My journey concludes with a visit to newly found African-American cousin on Martha’s Vineyard. In a stop at the "Inkwell," the African-American beach resort on the island, I am introduced to a slew of characters and subsequently invited into the extended African-American family. While delighted by this turn of events, I am also faced with conflicting emotions: elation at my heritage, anger for the time lost with my family, and confusion trying to understand exactly where I fit - black or white.

Finally, at the end of the show, I challenge the audience about their own preconceptions of who I am and how we each define race. We are left with a realization of the difficulties in categorizing, and a clear understanding of the importance of embracing and celebrating all of who we are.