Arden Theatre Company presents James Ijames’s Good Bones

Yet, in this Philadelphia premiere, there is a strange distance between the play’s thematic ambitions and its execution. It is a work that argues forcefully about the value of community, but struggles to populate that community with living, breathing people.

A premise with potential

The premise is ripe with potential. Aisha (Taysha Marie Canales) and her husband Travis (Newton Buchanan) have moved into the former home of Sister Bertha, a Black civic matriarch, and are in the process of an expensive renovation. Like Ijames’s other work, this play toys with magical realism. The house is haunted; we see this through lighting and sound cues, often relegated to the very ends of scenes. However, these spectral flourishes do little to add to the thematic resonance of the piece.

For a play set in a hyper-realistic kitchen (a beautiful if cumbersome design by Marie Laster) within the Arden’s relatively intimate second-floor space, the performances lean surprisingly broad. In keeping with modern trends, a gigantic island dominates the center of the room, blocking movement and obscuring sightlines. Forced to navigate this obstacle, director Akeem Davis has the cast playing for comedic pacing rather than intimacy. While this mode works in scenes of levity and supernatural high drama, it feels at odds with Ijames’s dialectic construction.

People and podiums

The friction begins with the marriage. Aisha, who grew up in the nearby "Dunbar projects", has returned as a successful urban planner working for the corporation building the new stadium. Travis, a chef who comes from money, is just happy to be along for the ride. This class difference provides early sparks of conflict, but the relationship remains underdeveloped. The script stumbles into heavy territory: in the first 30 minutes, Travis reports his neighbors to a watch app, gets racially profiled by the police, and questions whether he wants kids. These explosive beats feel more like plot devices than resolved character arcs.

The play finds its true pulse in the dynamic between Aisha and her contractor, Earl (Walter DeShields). Like Aisha, Earl is from the Dunbar projects. Unlike Aisha, he stayed. This divergence anchors the play’s central debate: Aisha wants to "revitalize" (read: bulldoze), while Earl wants to protect the existing community. Initially, Canales and DeShields share a bubbly, dangerous tension that suggests a much messier, more human play. Unfortunately, the script drops this interpersonal heat in favor of the intellectual debate. The characters stop being people and start being podiums for their respective ideologies: Pro-Development vs. Pro-Community.

The energy shifts significantly with the arrival of Earl’s younger sister, Carmen (Kishia Nixon). While the character is somewhat underwritten, Nixon shines with a bright, grounded performance that cuts through the play’s didacticism.

In fact, the play is at its best in its final half-hour. Here, the heavy-handed debating recedes, allowing comedy, vulnerability, and perhaps the most anticipated goat dish ever served in the American theater to take center stage. It is in this final stretch that the production finds the heart it has been searching for.

A conversation Philly wants

While I found Good Bones to be a mixed bag, the audience around me was audibly invested. The gasps of recognition and the nods of agreement were palpable. The box office agrees; the show has been extended a second time through March 22.

This production is part of a Citywide James Ijames Pass promotion, allowing patrons to buy discounted tickets to Good Bones, The Wilma’s The Most Spectacularly Lamentable Trial of Miz Martha Washington, and Philadelphia Theatre Company’s Wilderness Generation. If Good Bones is any indication, Ijames has tapped into a conversation Philadelphia is desperate to have, even if the conversation on stage isn't quite finished.