A family copes with cultural changes in “Crumbs from the Table of Joy”

One of two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Lynn Nottage’s earliest plays, Crumbs from the Table of Joy, is being given a new production courtesy of the Crossroads Theatre Company in New Brunswick. It is one of those works that gives insight into the creative beginnings of Nottage’s better-known works, such as Intimate Apparel, Sweat, and Clyde’s. While the play has its rough spots, one can see the promise of better things to come.

Crumbs from the Table of Joy centers around the black Crump family, who have moved from Florida to Brooklyn in the late 1940s, settling in a dismal-looking basement apartment. It’s 1950 when we meet them: widower father Godfrey (Jamil A.C. Mangan), a baker by trade; elder daughter Ernestine (Enih Agwe), in her senior year of high school; and younger daughter Ermina (Gabriyèl Barlatier).

Godfrey spends his nights at the bakery and his days caught up in the preachings of the popular religious huckster Father Divine, to whom he turned after his wife’s death. Ernestine, in love with the movies, is making a fancy graduation dress for herself and dreaming of the life she’ll have as a graduate with a diploma. Ermina is attracted to the spirit of the era — the language, the music, and the good times.

Into their lives comes Godfrey’s former sister-in-law, Lily Ann Green (Cloteal L. Horne). She moves into the apartment and in no time starts making moves on Godfrey. It seems that after Godfrey’s wife’s death there was some kind of physical relationship between Godfrey and Lily. But Father Divine’s teachings oppose sexual relations between man and woman regardless of their marital state, so Godfrey pushes her away.

An escalating argument over Lily’s espousal of Communist theory and her all-night visits to the hot spots of Harlem pulls the daughters into the fray, which ends when Godfrey grabs hat and coat and leaves the apartment. While he is away, riding the subway, wrestling with his emotions and religious beliefs, he meets Gerte Schulte (Lee Alexandra Harrington), a lost German emigrée. When Godfrey returns home, he brings Gerte along as his wife.

Director Nataki Garrett has worked with her cast to bring some clarity to Nottage’s play. While there are still some overly talky sections, especially in the first act, there are glimpses throughout the play of what would be Nottage’s growing mastery of the form. As for the cast, they do a good job with what they have. Especially fine performances are given by Agwe as Ernestine, our guide through the play; Horne as the free-spirited, worldly-wise Aunt Lily; and Mangan’s Godfrey, a man for whom time and distance have not lessened his grief, whose inner desires are battling with the teachings of his church.

Crumbs from the Table of Joy is not a perfect play. But it is important in that it gives us a look at the beginnings of Lynn Nottage’s playwriting career. We see themes that will echo in future plays: black culture and history, the drive for the promise of equality; the strength of black women forging their own emancipation and broaching their own ideas and beliefs. As such, this is a play worth seeing, and one that I encourage all audiences, especially those who go for strong emotional drama, to see.

Crumbs from the Table of Joy is presented in the Elizabeth Ross Johnson Theatre at the New Brunswick Performing Arts Center by the Crossroads Theatre Company through Nov. 23, 2025. For more information or to order tickets, go to crossroadstheatrecompany.org.