Families of any number, age, or culture often meet for special occasions, some more special than others. Depending on the mix of those above descriptors, these get-togethers result in quite different outcomes ranging from collegial to catastrophic. These gatherings can be around any number of holidays or around some specific tradition. Those celebrating a specific tradition are often annual events. The annual gathering of the five Jernigan sisters in “The Blood Quilt,” currently running at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater, is far less than congenial.

The sisters gather once a year at the Jernigan home on Kwemera Island (settings by Adam Rigg) off the coast of Georgia for “the Jernigan Gal quilting corner.” This is the first quilting since their “mama” died. The engine that drives the narrative here is the sisters’ overwhelming vortex of mama memories.

Each of the four sisters – Clementine (Crystal Dickinson), Gio (Adrienne C. Moore), Cassan (Susan Kelechi Watson), and Amber (Laure E. Banks) have a different father, so their memories of their childhoods and their relationships to Mama and their specific father are vastly different, with Mama being the matriarch and the common denominator between the siblings. There is much the four have not shared about their childhood and adolescent experiences. This first quilting after her death triggers those memories: these memories range from good memories to memories laden with unspeakable events.

It is difficult to reveal the unspeakable and inappropriate and unacceptable life stories that are shared finally and belatedly shared between the sisters. To do so would require spoiler alerts that would undermine Katori Hall’s narrative that carefully and surgically peels back the layers of jealousy, mistrust, and numbing trauma.

It would not be accurate to describe the “The Blood Quilt” narrative as “universal.” Some of the skeletons revealed here are in every family’s closet. But what transpires in the Jernigan home is unique. It is the story of five Southern Black women who have experienced the vicissitudes of life through a specific and sacred lens.

It might be easy to say, as some have, that Katori Hall has taken on too many issues to give any sufficient development: that is the way life is sometimes. Family life is messy. It might also be tempting to say that “The Blood Quilt” is overlong or overwrought. But that would be considering life itself to be overlong or overwrought. We choose to deal with life: it is worth taking the time to parse Katori Hall’s narrative.

How do sisters connected by blood through their mother exorcise the demons that have haunted them since childhood? Group therapy? Family therapy? An Esalen Institute retreat? Hallucinogens? Those platforms might solve fissures in the family matrix: the playwright chooses the more challenging to stage paranormal and magical realism.

After much vitriol and disclosure, Clementine describes the ritual that will bring the family dysfunction to an end: “You see, we all prick our forefinger with this needle. Passed on down from Ada. On every corner we sign our names in blood with it. Clementine. Gio. Cassan. Amber. But somebody gotta sign that centerpiece. It’s usually the oldest or the youngest” (who in this case is Cassan’s fifteen-year-old daughter Zambia (Mirirai).

Amber responds: “I just feel it’s—I don’t know—I mean— a bit back in the day. “Fusing the cloth with the life force.” Next, you’ll have us dancing around the quilt with chickens above our heads. Hoping the ancestors will rain down blessings. (then going Southern Preacher) “Whomsoever will be wrapped up will get the power!!!”

And Amber’s prediction continues the paranormal activity that begins in the bedroom when the sisters agree to begin the ritual Clementine suggests and comes to a climax just before the end of the play when the car is waiting to take them on the ferry back to the mainland.

Lileana Blain-Cruz directs with a keen sensitivity to the subject matter, particularly to the difficult paranormal and magical realism scenes. The ensemble cast members deliver authentic and believable performances portraying a dysfunctional family searching for closure, connectivity, and a future unburdened with the ghosts of the past. “The Blood Quilt” is a unique and powerful exploration of the richness of an extended family caught is a matrix of oppressive memories.