6 Countering Presentations of the Happy, Upwardly Mobile, Black Family in Cheryl West’s Before It Hits Home

Cheryl L. West, a Chicago native and an African American woman, penned Before It Hits Home while studying in Kingston, Jamaica, at the Jamaica School of Drama between 1986 and 1987.^[1] There, West shaped her writing voice through her encounters with Sistren (YouTube), a Jamaican theatre collective. According to journalist Ann Russo, a member of the collective, the women in Sistren inspired West to create theatre that explores deeply personal human relationships and culture, especially within the Black community.

As an ethno-drama published in 1989, Before It Hits Home, exposes a family’s inner struggles with truth, sexuality, and illness. The play foregrounds the young Black man Wendal Bailey, a bisexual trumpet player who learns that he is HIV positive. He becomes ill and then presumably dies of AIDS by the end of the play. Although Wendal is the central character in the drama, the play interrogates motherhood through his relationship with his mother, Reba Bailey, and the other women in his life, some of whom function like Othermothers.^[2]

Since Cheryl West credits her own mother as a major influence on her life and work, it is no wonder that women feature prominently in most of her plays. In “Exploring AIDS in the Black Community,” a 1989 Sojourn: The Women’s Forum article, West confirmed that her mother was her “greatest inspiration because she’s the first person who taught me what courage was about.”^[3] And Reba Bailey, the primary mother character in the play, is certainly courageous (initially) as she confronts her son’s revelation of AIDS. But Reba does not necessarily classify as “nurturing” as the play progresses. In fact, she soon begins to muddle through the emotional, physical, and psychological challenges associated with her son’s HIV-positive diagnosis and the lifestyle that she presumes accompanies it. Through Reba’s characterization, West presents a mother character who—like the mothers in the other plays in collection—demonstrates an inability to cope with her family’s unraveling stability during a crisis. 

The Motherhood Aesthetic

The Motherhood Aesthetic asserts that whereas female characters are traditionally portrayed as strong individuals who are caregivers, supportive partners in relationships, creators of positive change in their communities, sidesteppers of societal stigmas, and empowered, resilient women who care for hearth and home with elegance, grace, finesse, and flair, the mother character in this play challenges traditional constructions of motherhood by depicting an alternative and more realistic presentation of womanhood and motherhood. Each of the mother characters in this collection (including Cheryl West’s Reba and the Othermothers) are written as non-nurturing and non-caretaking individuals as a result of their choices and circumstances.

In Before It Hits Home, the Motherhood Aesthetic is traced, examined, and outlined through the lens of the Bailey family, whose stability crumbles due to both Wendal’s revelation of his terminal illness and Reba’s response, which is characterized by unsupportive coping strategies. Reba becomes a non-nurturing mother as a result of her spiritual, emotional, and psychological responses to her son’s medical diagnosis and lifestyle. Despite Reba’s significant shaping impact in the play, few scholars focus on the feminist themes that emerge in Before It Hits Home. This is because the play features five men: a brother, a lover, a grandson, a father, and Wendal Bailey.

Rather than notice the strong women characters, feminist tropes, and Motherhood Aesthetic in the work, there is a tendency to focus instead on West’s male-centered socio-commentary on AIDS and the Black middle class. The playwright cautions readers against this in her author’s note at the beginning of the printed play:

There is a tendency to be seduced by the Bailey family, thus having the focus of the play be on them. This is not my intention. Wendal’s two worlds—before he gets home and after he gets home—are equally important and at times, equally fractured.^[4]

To refocus attention on the Motherhood Aesthetic in the play, it is critical to examine the drama via the female characters, where motherhood can best be understood. These characters include Wendal’s pregnant girlfriend, Simone; Miss Peterson, the woman in the clinic waiting room; the white female doctor; Reba’s longtime “best friend” Maybelle; and Reba Bailey, who most represents the alternative, atypical mother figure.

Reba

The characterization of Mrs. Reba Bailey in Before It Hits Home plays a crucial role in the unfolding narrative regarding the Motherhood Aesthetic. As a married woman for thirty years and a mother of two sons, including Wendal, Reba is portrayed as an initially strong and complex woman who is central to the strength, joy, and wellness of her family’s dynamics. She is adored by her husband and sons, especially Wendal, who, from his perch on a stage with a saxophone, tells his listeners,

You know we talk about first love, but we got it wrong. I’m here to tell you, your first love connection is Mama, that first love journey is with her.^[5]

Wendal’s sense of himself as a “bad” musician and as “one fine confident specimen” is a reflection of the confidence that abides in his relationship with his mother. Crooning with his instrument and feeling his power on stage, he exposes the depths of his feelings about his mother:

I ain’t shamed to tell you, I got one of them Sadie Mamas. Can’t touch her. [. . .] This next tune, a ballad. We’re gonna play it deep, deep as your Mama’s soul.^[6]

Reba is deeply essential to her son’s sense of emotional security, as reflected in his feelings that her love is “the one kinda love that outlasts the test of time.”^[7] And Wendal is central to her sense of self-worth and accomplishment: following Wendal’s joyful welcome-home dinner party, she exclaims, “I’m just so damn happy.”^[8]

Yet, in a private moment later with Wendal—when she is away from the men and her best friend—she exposes her motherhood fears:

REBA. I ain’t never been nothing but somebody’s mother. And today I wondered if I had even been good at that [. . .] Now why don’t you tell Mama what’s bothering you. I let it go for a week but something’s eating you alive, I saw it when you first walked through that door.

WENDAL. Nothing.

REBA. (Firmly) I asked you a question. Don’t let me have to ask you twice.

WENDAL. I haven’t been well Mama. Been a little under the weather.

REBA. (Relieved.) Well, we’ll just have to get you better. It’s probably one of them flu bugs going around . . .

WENDAL. It’s not that simple.

REBA. I’ll make an appointment the first thing in the morning with Dr. Miller and . . .

WENDAL. Has he ever treated an AIDS patient?

REBA. (Not registering.) Oh, he’s treated all kinds of things. (What he said sinking in.) A what?

WENDAL. I have AIDS Mama.

REBA. Well, we’ll just get you there and have him check you out.

WENDAL. Mama, do you ever hear what people really say? Did you hear me say I have AIDS?

REBA. No Wendal. AIDS, I don’t know nothing about it. You ain’t got that.

WENDAL. I do.

REBA. What I just say? I don’t know nothing about no . . .

WENDAL. I’m sorry.

REBA. Oh my God, tell me you kidding Wendal.

WENDAL. I wish.

REBA. Bailey . . .

WENDAL. I haven’t figured out how to tell him.

REBA. How? How did you get something like this?

WENDAL. I don’t know.

REBA. (Her anger and fear out of control, loud.) What do you mean you don’t know? You come home and you’re dying of some disease and you don’t know how the hell you got it.

WENDAL. I’m not dying. I have . . .

REBA. Did you have some kind of surgery and they gave you bad blood?

WENDAL. No. What difference does it make how I got it?

REBA. You been lying to us. You been home here and you aint said a word . . .

WENDAL. Every day I tried to tell you . . . I practiced this speech . . .

REBA. I don’t want to hear no damn speech. I want to her how the hell you got this? Youre not one of them . . . that why you got so mad at dinner [when your father called your son a {homophobic slur} for serving the dinner in my frilly apron]?

WENDAL. Mama.

REBA. No. No. I know you’re not. You’ve been living with Simone . . .

WENDAL. (Carefully choosing his words.) Mama, you know that I never was quite right like Daddy used to say . . . (No response from Reba.) Try to understand Mama. I have relationships with women and sometimes with men.

REBA. No you don’t, un-un. No you don’t. You’re my son, just like Junior . . . you’re a man. You’re supposed to . . .

WENDAL. Supposed to what? Be like Daddy. His world don’t stretch no farther than this couch . . .

REBA. Boy, who the hell are you to judge anybody?^[9]

Reba, faced with the deadly reality of her son’s deteriorating condition and dumbfounded by the lifestyle of promiscuity and homosexuality that it reveals, fails to demonstrate empathy and compassion as a motherly response to his medical revelation. First, she expresses a critical need to understand how her son contracted HIV. Once she learns of his bisexuality, she grapples with a range of emotions, including fear and sorrow, before succumbing to denial, anger, and confusion. Working to navigate the complexities of AIDS and its stigma, she is unable to sustain the reality or the façade of family unity and function. Exploding in a wrath of raw emotion and unbridled anger, Reba indicts Wendal for immorality when she says:

Shut up. Just shut up. Don’t say a word. I heard enough from you last night to last a lifetime. I’m about to walk out that door and try to explain to that man out there why I don’t have a home no more. I hate what you’ve done to my house Wendal. Spent my life here, inside these walls, trying to stay safe, keep my family safe . . . didn’t know any better, maybe if I had, I could deal with what you done brought in here. See this slipcover, I made it. And that afghan, I made that too, these curtains . . . I made this table-cloth, see this lace. I made you. My son! And I took such pride . . . but last night you made me realize that I hadn’t made nothing, not a damn thing . . . been walking around fooling myself . . . It’s hard to look at something . . . I mean I look around here and it’s like somebody came in and smeared shit all over my walls . . . I’m scared to touch anything . . . you hear me Wendal, scared to touch anything in my own house . . . Nothing. Maybe if I could get outside these walls I could . . . I can’t stay here and watch it fester, crumble down around me . . . right now I can’t help you . . . I can hardly stand to even look at you . . . I can’t help your father . . . what good am I? I don’t know anymore. I just know this house is closing in on me and I got to get out of here.^[10]

Contrary to habitual depictions of Black motherhood, Reba is not a martyr or a superwoman, but an imperfect mortal abruptly forced to work out an overwhelming state of affairs—namely her son’s terminal illness. Firmly rooted in an identity construct that situates her as the keeper of a “proper” home, Reba cannot reconcile with her son because she cannot control the limits of his illness like she controls the limits of her household.

As one who sews, she cannot patch up her son or her family as if they are homemade curtains or afghans. While it is clear that she possesses strong maternal instincts that align with yesteryear’s Black mother characters—the ones who would have embraced their son despite his condition—Reba’s instinct is to retreat, not only because she fears her son but also because she fears the catastrophic family tension that his illness could unleash on her unraveling stability. In “African Diaspora Women: The Making of Cultural Carriers,” Bernice J. Reagon acknowledges that “a woman must come to terms with herself, her life, her sanity and her health as well as with the health of life around her” before she can sufficiently carry on as a “cultural carrier,” i.e., a mother, who is keeper and protector of family, culture, and traditions.^[11] Because Reba is neither able to manage the challenges facing her middle-class family structure nor the ensuing unraveling of her “safe” reality,^[12] she flees her household and thus abandons her two sons and husband. In doing so, she leaves them to face and confront the devastating impact of HIV/AIDS alone without her as mother and wife.

Although this abandonment of the family allows space for a strong father-son dependency to flourish, Reba’s self-exile is drawn in opposition to the nurturing mother figure portrayed in traditional plays, like Lena Younger in Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun (1959) and Rose in August Wilson’s Fences (1985). Reba’s actions refute the long-held belief in blind maternal acceptance and unconditional love. Reba’s actions refute the long-held belief in blind maternal acceptance and unconditional love.  And while the strong woman is a bulwark against all tides and tsunamis of change hitting the family, it is true that not one woman is perfect, so it is vital that this play presents Reba in all her humanity, including her heartfelt and heart-wrenching failings and victories. Her abandonment of her sons reflects on Wendal’s earlier claim that a mother’s love is “the one kinda love that out lasts the test of time.”^[13] Consequently, the decomposition in Before it Hits Home (YouTube) is not of Wendal’s body alone, but also of his mother’s emotional and psychological stability as she reckons with turbulent realizations about her son’s lifestyle, her family’s status and reputation within her community, and her efficacy as a parent.

Wendal’s Response to His Mother

Wendal’s response to his mother, Reba, is emotionally charged and emotionally weak, and reflects the complexities of their interactions, particularly within the context of his HIV-positive diagnosis. Wendal is reluctant to share the details of his diagnosis with his mother because he struggles with how to communicate his situation to her. He laments, “Every day I tried to tell you . . . I practiced this speech . . .”^[14]

Wendal seems well aware that his musician lifestyle contradicts the professional expectations of his middle-class Black family, and he is struck by the conundrum that presents. Moreover, he hesitates to tell his mother about his illness because he knows that there are limits to her love for him. Caught unprepared to face his family, he experiences a range of emotions: fear, frustration, and vulnerability as he approaches the reveal of his diagnosis. Prior to exposing his illness, he expresses concerns about how his mother will react to the intrusion of imperfection in her family and how she will grapple with issues of societal stigma and judgment. He seeks comfort and support from Reba, hoping for understanding and acceptance, but receives neither. This is further evidence that Reba is only fictively the mother Wendal believes she is.

Reba’s response to Wendal’s illness demonstrates her emotional journey into despair, homophobia, shame, and embarrassment, and she becomes increasingly detached from him as a person and as a son. She says, “I can hardly stand to even look at you . . .”^[15] Her words are accusatory—like weapons aimed at his heart. Wendal sees and knows the feelings of guilt and inadequacy when Black mothers are the ones who enable a flawed or dysfunctional Black family.

Before It Hits Home deconstructs motherhood when it depicts a mother as the chief cause of a modern-day fractured family. The play, dedicated “to those who have to hide and to those who refuse to,”^[16] foregrounds the gay community and people living with AIDS—people who, in 1989 when this play was first staged at the Multicultural Playwrights Festival in Seattle, Washington, needed public acknowledgement to move from dark “closets” to the light. The play also suggests that anyone, including mothers, can sometimes relinquish their joy in efforts to bear all things for their families.

The gift of women and mothers is that they love well. In fact, it is generally held that women love unconditionally. For the most part, women try to be perfect in their love of their children, others, husband, and families. This is the genius of women. However, not all women all the time—nor most women all the time—get this right, because women are human, and they have flaws. The degree to which Cheryl West paints women as mothers in moments, mothers over a whole lifetime, and even mothers in moments of crisis, is an act toward predicting the complexity of motherhood. If mothers are imperfect (or if some mothers, women, and girlfriends are 100% imperfect all the time), then this means that West is accurately depicting a true, real femininity—one that is deeply, deeply human. In drawing Reba as a non-nurturing and non-caretaking woman in this specific context (i.e., in the face of a dying and deathly ill son who needs to be loved unconditionally), West revises customary depictions of motherhood to demonstrate that domestic matters are seldom wrapped up as neatly as dramatic literature and society have led us to expect. And in that, there is something very beautiful because as a writer and playwright, West is being honest in conveying a truth about motherhood.

Simone

As Wendal’s live-in girlfriend/fiancée and mother of his unborn child, Simone also contributes to the unfolding narrative and basis of the Motherhood Aesthetic in the play. Her reactions and responses to Wendal’s diagnosis provide insight into the emotional complexities of their relationship and the reactions that couples may face in the instance of a health crisis. Described by the playwright as a “Black woman in her early 20s. Wendal’s lover,” Simone is attentive and nurturing to Wendal, calling him at one point “her big baby [. . .] mister baby,” the way a mother might.^[17] And while she is not yet a mother expressly—even as she is pregnant with his child—she is the first to notice the severity of his cough: “Baby I told you that cough is getting worse. Flu doesn’t hang on this long.”^[18] In her active attempts to woo him, she reveals the nuances of her character. Her character exhibits themes of loyalty, support, and love as she struggles to understand and accept the realities of Wendal’s living with HIV/AIDS. As is often customary for Black women, her experiences with her man blur the lines between lover, child/lover, and mother, and the overlap of roles adds layers of complexity to their situation. Even though Simone does not know about Wendal’s lover, she presents as a “better” mother than Reba because she doesn’t abandon him. This could indicate her future effectiveness as a mother. Simone’s experiences and interactions with Wendal, as well as with other characters, highlight the challenges of navigating relationships when confronted with a serious illness.

Maybelle

As discussed in Chapter 3, women are often undergirded by Othermothers and their community support networks.^[19] These support networks involve friendships, familial relationships, or community organizations where women come together to provide emotional support, share experiences, and address the broader social issues surrounding their lives. Sometimes the support network is comprised of one primary individual, and sometimes the network is a Sister Circle, a close-knit group of women who support each other like family members. In the play, for Reba, it is her longtime best friend Maybelle who provides reliable, consistent female support. Confiding in Maybelle even prior to confiding in her own husband, Reba first reveals her intuitions about her son’s illness:

REBA: Don’t say nothing to Bailey but I had me one of those dreams again. My child was playing, Maybelle, playing his horn, I declare he was, playing it like his life depended on it.

MAYBELLE: He’s fine Reba. You would’ve heard if something was wrong.

[Maybelle gives Reba a dress.]

REBA: (Kisses her.) What would I do without you?

MAYBELLE: Well, I never plan for you to find out.

The bond between Reba and Maybelle is so strong even Bailey notices the women’s closeness:

BAILEY: (Gruffly, for he is always a jealous witness when it comes to the intimacy between the two women.)

For once I’d like to walk through this door and not find you sittin’ up in my house.^[20]

Whereas Reba crumbles under the pressure of her stress, anxiety, and depression, Maybelle, conversely, represents the empowerment and resilience of motherhood in the midst of a crisis. She exhibits themes of love, loyalty, and compassion. Even as she expresses the challenges of maintaining a connection during a health crisis, she is loving and supportive to her friend and to Wendal. As a longtime family friend who has known Wendal since he was a boy, Maybelle serves as a support system for both characters, but certainly for Reba.

On Wendal and His Father

While the female characters in the play explore the complex web of forces and interactions within the institution of motherhood, ironically, in the final scene, it is Wendal’s father who bravely overcomes strong masculine pride to care for his dying son. The intensity and steadfastness of his fatherly care is unusual for a man in a 1980s play because men of that era were more commonly featured as breadwinners rather than as caretakers. The fact that Bailey ultimately becomes the caregiver further emphasizes Reba as a mother who abandons her son. Even in that, the relationship between Wendal and his father is a complex one marked by a struggle for acceptance and understanding. In the beginning of the play, when Reba is still present, it is pride (versus homophobia, anger, or disbelief) that serves as the obstacle to Bailey caring for Wendal.

Audience Reactions

Cheryl West recognizes her play as a mode of representation for real people and not as a one-dimensional “staged” presentation. In this sentiment, she shares a perspective with Aishah Rahman, author of The Mojo and the Sayso. In the dedication notes for Before It Hits Home, West confirms that her play is dedicated “to those who have to hide and to those who refuse to.”^[21] This intentional outreach to audiences and readers has resonated with these groups across the decades, even as far back as 1989 when the play debuted. This dedication reinforces West’s intention to use her play to speak to real people. Ann Russo, West’s friend and interviewer, spent time with the playwright in Jamaica in 1989—a place and time when homophobia was still normative. There, in Jamaica, Russo witnessed the early staging of Before It Hits Home. She recounted audience reactions to the production in those early days:

Following past performances, audience members have been found sobbing, exchanging their own stories, and engaging with one another about the potential impact of AIDS on their own lives thanking Cheryl for speaking to their experience, especially the fears and conflicts they face in their lives.^[22]

It is not surprising that audiences connect to Reba’s shock at the intrusion of AIDS into her middle-class Black family. Audiences associate with Reba’s inability to accept the reality of her son’s bisexuality and illness. As an essential character in this critical “ethno-drama,” Reba sheds light on the complexities of her motherhood role. In doing so, she reflects a valuable insight into some familial and societal attitudes toward HIV/AIDS. What’s more, Reba’s reaction to her son’s condition prompts audiences to encounter their own perspectives on these matters. Importantly, Cheryl West (the playwright), recommends theatre as a forum for this encounter. She says:

I think the only way we’re going to be able to fight AIDS is to be educated about it, and in that sense, I think theatre does a good job because it invites people in with a story, and at the same time, educates people by confronting them with their own assumptions. Even if you may not be able to relate to the issue of AIDS, there may be somebody [from among the eleven characters] that you might be able to relate to. And once you hook into one person, you’ll be more open to looking.^[23]

In this “ethno-drama,” Cheryl West uses the Motherhood Aesthetic to establish female characters and women in theatre as having tremendous potential to challenge the status quo and promote progressive social change in the community, particularly for marginalized groups.

The Signifying Aesthetic