Come Down Burning

by Kia Corthron

Skoolie lives in a clean, tiny shack at the top of the big hill, across from the small grocer. She doesn't have the use of her legs and uses a cart built close to the ground to get to the store, and around the house where her appliances are cut close to the floor. Her sister, Tee, is living with her, again, with her three small children. Though Tee is welcome, it is a hardship to support everyone on Skoolie's income from plaiting hair and occasionally performing abortions. As time goes on, it grows increasingly difficult for Skoolie to handle the extra people; last time Tee came to live, two of her children died from lack of food. Tee is very simple in the way she looks at the world, sometimes too much so, which causes a familiar family antagonism between the women a caring but at-odds view on how to better their lives. When Skoolie discovers that Tee is again pregnant, she tries to convince her to give up the baby. Tee loves her children and though at first does not want to think about it knows that she doesn't want to jeopardize the three living ones to possibly bury another. Bink, Skoolie's lifelong girlfriend, comes to visit and get her hair done. She also asks Skoolie to perform an abortion; she and her husband are not ready for children. She follows Skoolie's advice, does not eat, does as she's told and the abortion is clean. Tee tries harder to be in charge of her life and her children's lives. When she notices a mark on her daughter's arm, put there by a negligent teacher, she wants to confront the teacher herself, but Skoolie, knowing Tee's social skills are not good, confronts the teacher for her, winning a small victory for them all but making Tee feel more inadequate.Failing at taking care of her children, Tee tries to take care of her own abortion but tragically fails at that too. Skoolie comes home in the afternoon to find her sister dying. While she tries in vain to keep Tee from slipping away, Skoolie knows she must again bear the burden of taking on and taking care of a loving but sorrow-filled family.

Genres: Plays

72 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

Reviews

[Bobby Keniston · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kia Corthron has written many plays, as well as the novel "The Castle Cross the Magnet Carter" which won the 2016 Center For Fiction First Novel Prize. She also wrote episodes for the television series "The Jury" and "The Wire".
"Come Down Burning" centers around two grown sisters: Skoolie, the elder sister, who is paralyzed from her waist down due to a fall from tree as a child, and Tee, the younger sister with three children, who always needs help from Skoolie. It is established that Skoolie is the strong one, despite her physical condition, and she can move around fiercely in a wooden cart her father had made for her years ago, a cart with wheels on the bottom. Already, Corthron has inverted a cliche in a terrific manner by making Skoolie the one who takes care of the family. Tee has moved in with her three children, ages 9, 6 and a baby of just 3 months, and we learn it is not the first time that Skoolie has had to take Tee in and take care of her. Tee defers to Skoolie on most things, like how best to feed the baby, and how to deal with a mean teacher who is singling out her daughter, but this begins to build a kind of resentment--- in truth, a feeling that has probably been building in Tee for years
Skoolie makes money doing hair, and also performing illegal abortions on the side. Though Tee has three children is pregnant again, we learn two of her children had died, most likely because of malnourishment brought on by poverty. Class, race and poverty is dealt with in a strong manner in this play, though not in any way that feels preachy. Tee needs to make a decision about the pregnancy, and how to move forward, and if she can even move forward without her older sister's help.
But even more than help, she wants Skoolie's approval.
I will not go into the ending here, only to say that it was a very powerful piece and that Corthron packs a great deal of emotion into a a short piece. Her language is also poetic, yet still feels natural and real.
"Come Down Burning" had a workshop production at the Long Wharf Theatre, and then premiered at the American Place Theater in 1993

[Aaron Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dark stuff. I like the language in this a lot, and the play is certainly theatrical. What's wonderful about Corthron's language is that she works in misdirection. The characters know each other very, very well, and it's our job to figure out what they're talking about; it isn't their job to make sure we know what's up.

But as I say, this is a dark, dark little play. It's a kind of 1990s companion to Mary P. Burrill's They That Sit in Darkness, although Corthron is interested in much more than the straightforward messaging of Burrill's one-act.

[Sophia M · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a devastatingly powerful little play. I’m going to be thinking about this one for a long time.