"Covenant" - by York Walker - SpeakEasy Stage Company (Boston, MA.) - REVIEW
(Cover Photo: Deannah Dripp Blemur as “Avery” with Crystin Gilmore as “Mama” in a scene from York Walker's "COVENANT" now playing at SpeakEasy Stage Company in Boston, MA. until October 17, 2026. Photo credit: Benjamin Rose Photography)
By Kevin T. Baldwin
METRMAG Reviewer
# 774-242-6724
“Early this morning when you knocked upon my door…I said "hello Satan, I believe it's time to go.”
- (“Cross Road Blues”) / Robert Johnson
SpeakEasy Stage Company
Presents York Walker's
"COVENANT"
Written by York Walker
Directed by Dawn M. Simmons
Cast includes: Deannah Dripp Blemur* as “Avery,” Crystin Gilmore* as “Mama,” Anthony T. Goss* as “Johnny “Honeycomb” James,” Sydney Alicia Jackson* as “Violet,” Kayla Sessoms as “Ruthie.”
Additional Creative Team:
Scenic Design – Saskia Martinez; Costume Design – Danielle Domingue Sumi; Lighting Design – Kevin Dunn; Sound Design – Mackenzie Adamick**; Props Coordinator – Lauren Corcuera; Production Stage Manager – Renee E. Yancey*; Assistant Stage Manager – Andrea McAdam; Illusion Design – Evan Northrup; Assistant Director – Karina Tejera; Stage Management Intern – Nathan Kikonyogo.
*Indicates the actors and stage managers as members of Actors' Equity Association, the union of professional actors and stage managers in the United States.
Performances:
September 25, 2026 through October 17, 2026
(Contact Box Office for Exact Times)
Roberts Studio Theatre, Calderwood / BCA, 527 Tremont Street, Boston, MA. 02116
TICKETS:
Contact the Box Office # 617-933-8600 or visit www.speakeasystage.com
BUY TICKETS
COVID 19 PROTOCOLS
Contact Venue for Most Updated COVID-19 Safety Protocols and Information.
(Warning: The following review contains spoilers)
SpeakEasy Stage Company launches into the annual scary season with an inspired haunting tale, "COVENANT," now playing in Boston.
Originally directed by Tiffany Nichole Greene, "COVENANT" premiered Off-Broadway in 2023.
Now on the SpeakEasy Stage, "COVENANT" can thrill, entertain and, above all, scare the bejeezus out of Boston audiences thanks to the creative efforts of SpeakEasy director Dawn M. Simmons.
Staged on a deceptively intricate set designed to appear fairly minimalistic, "COVENANT" is loaded with many tricks and treats that will keep audiences riveted for the one-act’s 90-minute runtime.
Filled with all things that tend to frighten us (well, me, actually) - creaking doors, demonic possession, loud noises and bad guitar playing – "COVENANT" is written by York Walker, inspired by an absurd myth of blues legend Robert Johnson, or “The Legend of the Crossroads.”
Folklore of the southern United States associates a “crossroads” or “graveyard” as the site of a pact made between Johnson and Satan, aka “the Devil.”
According to the “Crossroads” fable, Johnson allegedly sold his soul to the Devil at a literal Mississippi crossroads in exchange for his legendary blues talent.
Supposedly, Johnson was a terrible guitar player before he made this bargain.
But Satan, being a “yuge” fan of the blues (of course), granted Johnson supernatural mastery over playing blues guitar…in return for Johnson’s soul.
Allegedly, Johnson’s surrendering of his immortal soul resulted in his tragic death at just 27-years-old.
Of course, this is an insulting, contemptuous myth, certainly, and one that denigrates the artistry of the masterful blues legend to whom music still owes a great debt.
Then again, the truth of Johnson’s demise (being reported as the result of being poisoned with laced whiskey by a jealous husband) may not be that much more appealing.
But the myth alone was enough for playwright Walker to write "COVENANT," approaching the story from a different angle or point of view – from the women closest to the guitar player.
(Photo: Anthony T. Goss as “Johnny “Honeycomb” James” with Deannah Dripp Blemur as “Avery” in a scene from York Walker's "COVENANT" now playing at SpeakEasy Stage Company in Boston, MA. until October 17, 2026. Photo credit: Benjamin Rose Photography)
The play is set in 1936 in Jim Crow-era Georgia.
In SpeakEasy Stage Company's "COVENANT," replacing Johnson is fictional guitar player Johnny “Honeycomb” James (Anthony T. Goss), who has returned to his small hometown after disappearing for two years.
Since leaving, the struggling guitarist, in a perceptive performance by Goss, has become a rising star blues player, on the verge of achieving great fame.
However, Johnny's success also inspires rumors that he may have made a deal with the Devil to attain his musical genius.
One person who refuses to believe in such rumors is young Avery (Deannah Dripp Blemur), who falls for Johnny (quickly) and with whom Johnny (also quickly) seeks to marry.
Why Walker did not allow or provide some additional moments for the relationship between Avery and Johnny to blossom could have been because he thought it would mitigate or lessen the impact of what follows - but the brevity in which that particular plot point occurs is by itself startling...even before the more "startling" stuff happens.
(Photo: Deannah Dripp Blemur as “Avery” with Kayla Sessoms as “Ruthie” in a scene from York Walker's "COVENANT" now playing at SpeakEasy Stage Company in Boston, MA. until October 17, 2026. Photo credit: Benjamin Rose Photography)
Blemur offers an insightful portrayal of Avery, who is a devout young woman desperate to escape her small town and the pious oppression from her strict and deeply religious "Mama" (Crystin Gilmore).
Blemur’s role also requires intense physicality at times, as aspects of her internal struggle moves from emotional to supernatural.
As Mama, Gilmore ably carries much of the drama, serving as both the story’s main protagonist and antagonist - a matriarch whose own internal demons seem to be at constant odds with the external demons plaguing everyone around her.
Centering on this particular community’s power of devout beliefs, the Gothic "COVENANT" illustrates just how frail the bonds are between inference and fact, gossip and truth, folklore and faith.
Avery seeks her own kind of truth and feels her salvation would come with a better life with Johnny, which tests her family's insular convictions, entangling them all in a web of fear and deceit.
(Photo: Deannah Dripp Blemur as “Avery” with Crystin Gilmore as “Mama” in a scene from York Walker's "COVENANT" now playing at SpeakEasy Stage Company in Boston, MA. until October 17, 2026. Photo credit: Benjamin Rose Photography)
Avery’s older sister Violet (effectively played by Sydney Alicia Jackson) sees nothing but despair and doom in Avery’s relationship with Johnny, but is oblivious as the events also widen the rift that exists between herself and Mama.
Also, in effort to escape Mama’s tightly run and pious household, Violet often seeks comfort from best friend Ruthie (Kayla Sessoms), often spending time together sneaking and drinking moonshine on the church steps.
Sessoms as Ruthie gives a fine performance as Violet’s closest ally, with the two sharing the most scenes together.
And yet, even that bond of friendship soon becomes sorely tested as eerie events begin to strike as if lightning were hitting a tombstone in a graveyard.
Both Jackson and Sessoms have solid chemistry, but each seems to experience a “disconnect” with the required local Georgia vernacular or dialect (at least as written by Walker) sporadically struggling to make it part of their onstage personae.
(Photo: Anthony T. Goss as “Johnny “Honeycomb” James” in a scene from York Walker's "COVENANT" now playing at SpeakEasy Stage Company in Boston, MA. until October 17, 2026. Photo credit: Benjamin Rose Photography)
With elements of sudden surprise, cleverly executed technical effects, several abrupt plot twists and turns all combined to keep us off balance, the fear factor of SpeakEasy Stage Company's intense "COVENANT" increases exponentially as it builds to a delightfully satisfying frightful summit.
If you enjoy a well-told "goosepimply" story, then York Walker's "COVENANT is the play to see this Halloween season, continuing at SpeakEasy Stage Company in Boston until October 17th, 2026.
Moving from a small town in Georgia to a small town in Idaho, coming up in the new year at SpeakEasy Stage will be Samuel D. Hunter's "LITTLE BEAR RIDGE ROAD" which runs from January 29th until February 20th, 2027.
For tickets and more information, contact the SpeakEasy Box Office at # 617-933-8600 or visit www.speakeasystage.com
BUY TICKETS
Approximately one hour, 30 minutes with no intermission.
Kevin T. Baldwin is a member of the American Theatre Critics Association (ATCA)
@MetrmagReviews
@Theatre_Critics
ABOUT THE SHOW
In York Walker's "COVENANT" - In this town, a good myth might as well be the truth. Johnny “Honeycomb” James comes back home famous, changed, and impossible to explain.
The voice is real, but the rumors are loud. In a town that remembers everything and forgives nothing, his return cracks open old stories and new accusations.
Soon no one can agree on what’s true, only on what feels true enough to believe.
Walker's "COVENANT" is a Southern Gothic thriller about myth-making, moral panic, and the stories people choose when the truth is too inconvenient.
ABOUT SPEAKEASY STAGE COMPANY
SPEAKEASY STAGE COMPANY is a non-profit theatre company located in the South End of Boston and is led by award-winning Producing Artistic Director Dawn Meredith Simmons. SPEAKEASY STAGE COMPANY was named the Pavilion Resident Theater for the Boston Center for the Arts in 2007 and produces 28 weeks of new plays and musicals each season at the Nancy and Ed Roberts Studio Theater in the Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts.
