Content Warning: The source text and this guide contain descriptions and discussions of racism, race, and Black racial stereotypes. This guide quotes and obscures the source text’s use of the n-word.

The stage directions read, “Lights up on a negro” (7). Beverly, a Black woman, is peeling real carrots as she sings and dances to music that comes through a speaker. She examines her reflection in an imaginary mirror on the fourth wall. Dayton, her husband, enters and checks her appearance as well, startling her. Beverly chides Dayton but lets him distract her briefly with a kiss before returning anxiously to the task of preparing a birthday dinner for her mother, Mama. Dayton has brought the barest minimum of six place settings of silverware, and Beverly reproaches him at first and then accepts it. As Beverly plots out the seating, Dayton resists the idea of Mama sitting at the head of the table in his house, and he is displeased to learn that Beverly’s sister, Jasmine, is joining them. Beverly replies, “She’s family. And family is everything” (10).

Dayton exits, and Beverly calls after him, asking him for the root vegetables he was directed to buy.