In Dominique Dickson’s new psychological thriller, a woman seeks to learn the truth about her marriage, as memory, identity and perception begin to collide
Vestiges, an award-winning psychological thriller selected for the New York Theater Festival, is a one-act play about a Black woman who becomes convinced that her husband is cheating on her. But what initially appears to be a story of infidelity gradually reveals something more psychologically complex, painful, and deeply rooted in the family’s past.
“I wanted to explore the stigma of mental health in the Black community — the tough-it-out mentality, the lack of acknowledgement, and the disparity in services — through a creative medium,” says playwright Dominique Dickson. “I also wanted to explore what happens when a person’s experience is dismissed or misread by the people closest to them.”
In the play, Maya and Craig are “a married couple whose relationship unravels under the weight of untreated mental illness, fractured memories, and unresolved trauma,” according to the production’s description. “Convinced her husband is having an affair, Maya searches for the truth, but as reality begins to shift, audiences are drawn into an unsettling journey where memory, identity, and perception collide.”
“There’s the shame and the stigma that can surround disclosing something so traumatic,” adds director and co-producer Lara Ruth Smith, speaking of Maya’s specific situation. “Who do you even open up to about something like this when you don’t have support?”
According to the federal government’s 2024 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, about 61.5 million American adults, nearly one in four, are living with a mental illness. Close to half of them get no treatment for it. The gap is wider in communities of color: among Black adults with a mental illness, 38.5% received treatment, compared with 57.9% of white adults; for Hispanic adults, the figure was 44.1%, and for Asian adults, 32.5%. These disparities reflect a combination of barriers, including cost and access, shortages of culturally responsive providers, mistrust rooted in inequitable treatment, and the stigma that can still surround mental illness and help-seeking.
Dickson came to the subject from more than one direction. “As a Black woman, I think Black women are often expected to be extremely strong and composed even when they’re struggling internally,” she says. “There are a lot of stereotypes about how Black women deal with mental health, like the ‘angry Black woman’ trope, and I feel they’re unfair… I wanted to bring a character to the forefront who created space for vulnerability and complexity and authenticity.”
Black Americans compose about 13% of the U.S. population, but only roughly 5% of its psychologists, according to American Psychological Association workforce data, and barely 2% of its psychiatrists, according to the American Psychiatric Association. “The amount of Black patients that need to see me will never see me,” Los Angeles psychiatrist Racquel Reid told MindSite News. Dickson wrote the play with that gap in mind. “I just thought how awful it would be if someone was experiencing mental health issues, they decided to seek out treatment, and then they can’t find someone who looks like them, or feels like they would be able to relate to their culture, their story,” she says. The all-Black cast, and the Black therapist who runs the couple’s sessions on stage grew out of that.
From Audience to Stage
The play began in a theater seat. Dickson’s son is a professional actor, and she saw his recent run in Newsies more than 20 times. “Each time created a different experience,” she says. It made her realize that ”I want to write something for this environment… Vestiges is what came out of my figurative pen.”
Dickson first entered the script into festivals “really just for the recognition, laurels and feedback,” she says, but Vestiges’ nearly unbroken winning streak convinced her that “maybe something is really special here.” Then she learned that some festivals stage their official selections. “The New York Theater Festival is the premiere, but it’s not the end point,” she says. The production has taken on mental health partners, STAR Network and PACEs Connection among them, to bring the play to caregivers and practitioners through community conversations and virtual programming, and a full-length version may come as it builds a following.
Saving Her, or Keeping Her?
Dickson wrote Craig to divide a room. “Reasonable people will disagree whether he’s a knight in shining armor or he’s a terrible narcissist,” she says. “Some people might love him. And there’s also people who are going to say he has a severely narcissistic savior complex, and this is a form of abuse. Preventing someone he claims to love from getting mental health treatment, and enabling her worsening condition.”
The line between the two is thinner than either camp would like. When one person decides what another is permitted to know about her own life, even a decision made in the name of love can carry consequences. Maya is repeatedly asked to trust the people around her at a moment when she can no longer fully trust her own memories and perceptions. “When you already don’t trust yourself and your mind and your memories, you seek out validation from the people around you,” Dickson says. Smith picks up the thought: “So that could have also prevented her from seeking out treatment on her own.”
Psychologists who study couples have a name for a milder cousin of Craig’s secret: protective buffering, hiding worries and acting as if everything is fine so a partner won’t be upset. Research by psychologist Heike Winterheld suggests the motive matters. Buffering intended primarily to protect oneself was associated with poorer mental health for both partners, while partner-protective motives were not associated with those same adverse mental-health outcomes.
Dickson deliberately withholds a definitive explanation of Craig’s motives. “I didn’t want to give the audience a chance to decide whether his reason was good enough,” she says. That ambiguity leaves viewers to determine for themselves whether Craig is saving Maya, controlling her, or occupying an uncomfortable space between the two.
Plenty of STARs will recognize the house from one side or the other: the rescuer who needs to be needed, and the person being protected who is also the person being managed. Smith sees Craig caught in his own cover story. “He’s gone on with this charade for so long,” she says. “They feel like they’re really trapped in keeping up this illusion.” Dickson’s hope for anyone in his seat is simple. “Seeking out help beyond yourself can be part of the saving.”
Vestiges runs about 40 minutes, at the LATEA Theater, 107 Suffolk Street on the Lower East Side, as part of the New York Theater Festival’s Fall/Winter season. Performances take place on Tuesday, November 17 at 6:15 PM; Friday, November 20 at 4:00 PM; and Saturday, November 21 at 9:00 PM.
Tickets are available here.
STAR Network is the production’s Executive Sponsor. If you recognized your own house in Craig’s, or in Maya’s, TAR Anon® is a free, anonymous, worldwide peer fellowship for people healing from Toxic Abusive Relationships™. No referral or diagnosis is required, and you can bring the story exactly as it is.
