‘Klook and Vinette’ @ Jubilee Theatre

—Rickey Wax

After spending some time out of the country, I made my way back down to Jubilee Theatre, where walking through the doors has always felt a little like returning to family. If I needed a welcome-home gift, Klook and Vinette proved to be quite a refreshing one.

As I walked into the theater, one of my favorite R&B songs, Jill Scott’s “Lyzel in E Flat,” serenaded the room. Suspended chiffon panels in browns, burnt oranges, and nude tones draped the stage, while exposed-filament pendant bulbs hung overhead. The house lights were low, the atmosphere warm and intimate. It had the sultry, late-night feeling of a Quiet Storm radio hour. Before anyone had spoken a word, I already knew what I was getting into.

Written by Ché Walker, with music and lyrics by Anoushka Lucas and Omar Lyefook, Klook and Vinette is a love story, but calling it simply that feels inadequate. It is part play, part concert, part poetry and part memory—following two people who find one another while carrying histories neither has completely escaped.

Under Khira Hailey’s direction, the afternoon opens with red and blue police lights pulsing across the stage. Klook sits on the edge of the bed, a .45-caliber handgun in one hand and a bottle of rum nearby. It is a startling first image for a love story. Brian Gibson’s Klook then opens with “Memories,” fitting for a romance recalled in pieces. Musical director Geno Young sits at the edge of the playing space behind a piano cleverly tucked into the scenery, as in a bar. Klook and Vinette move backward and forward through their relationship, addressing us as readily as they address one another. Memories weave through the present as dialogue drifts into narration before effortlessly finding its way into song.

Initially, Walker’s language caught me off guard. It is heightened, rhythmic and unapologetically lyrical. Before long, however, its grammar becomes clear. This is lyrical dramaturgy, where language communicates through more than words: rhythm, repetition and musicality become part of the action. And it is lush.

And to think, it all begins with a cup of carrot juice.

Klook, some twenty years Vinette’s senior, orders the drink and immediately catches her attention, partly because she cannot quite believe this man has willingly ordered carrot juice. It is an unassuming beginning for a relationship that will eventually ask so much of them both. Vinette wants to be a writer, though saying that dream aloud frightens her. With Klook, she gradually allows herself to do more than say it. She shares her work, baring a part of herself she has otherwise kept guarded and allowing him, quite literally, to read her like an open book.

Klook’s vulnerability emerges differently. He’s a pool cleaner with a strong work ethic. He doubts whether he deserves love at all and, at one point, tries to convince Vinette that she would be better off leaving him. She stays. Throughout their relationship, they repeatedly find themselves lifting the other when one no longer has the strength to do it alone. There is something beautiful about watching love function as reassurance.

The tenderness made me wish the production trusted stillness a little more during its opening passages. Gibson and Tamya Simmons, as Vinette, initially move through some exchanges at a pace that leaves little room for attraction to simmer. The chemistry is there, but early on it can feel slightly arranged rather than discovered. A story this sensual needs breath. Simply allowing silence to linger another second could make these two bodies feel less choreographed and more curious about one another. Giving those quieter moments additional space would also make the play’s later eruptions more startling, particularly when Klook learns about the child.

Still, it’s opening weekend, with plenty of time to settle in. As the afternoon progressed, Gibson and Simmons did just that. Their bodies softened, their timing loosened, and the relationship began to feel lived in.

That familiarity becomes important in a story concerned with what happens after attraction, when romance must contend with everything two people bring with them. Director Hailey has chosen to make that history visible by scattering suitcases across the stage—doubling as tables, a nightstand, and pieces of the home Klook and Vinette create. Neither has arrived without a past.

It is perhaps the production’s most effective visual metaphor. There are things neither is ready to unpack, though the past has a way of opening itself when left unattended for too long.

Holi Price’s lighting follows that unraveling. The exposed bulbs that initially hang quietly above the lovers begin to flicker as cracks form in the lives they have presented to one another. The warm sensuality established at the beginning gradually becomes less comforting.

Gibson gives Klook a particularly expressive physical vocabulary. His face often gets to the punchline before his mouth does, and his physical comedy provides welcome levity. Vocally, he possesses grit and a growl that suits a man whose tenderness always seems to have something rough underneath it.

Simmons answers him with a smoky alto that can become strikingly pure when the music demands it, touched with just enough vibrato to give sustained phrases texture. As Vinette moves toward the evening’s emotional reckoning, Simmons allows that voice to open. What had felt contained suddenly feels exposed.

Together, their voices melt into one another. This is where Klook and Vinette is most persuasive. Music becomes the place where these two people seem capable of saying what ordinary speech cannot hold.

The tragedy is that love does not necessarily erase what came before it. Sometimes it simply gives us someone beside whom we finally feel safe enough to unpack.

Klook and Vinette never promises that love can save us from the past, only that it might make carrying it a little less lonely. The result may be tragic, but it is beautiful to witness. Jubilee Theatre turns this imperfect romance into one unforgettable slow jam.

WHEN: July 31-August 30, 2026
WHERE: 506 Main St, Fort Worth
WEB: www.jubileetheatre.org