Pearl Louise Gets Pulled into Parents’ Duplex Dream in 80s East Oakland

by Mary Lou Herlihy

“Pass the Nails and Shame the Devil,” is a love letter to Pearl Louise’s powerful mom. Small in stature and monumentally ambitious, her mom fights against poverty, drugs, and racism with HOPE and HARD WORK.

As a kid, Pearl constantly heard about hope and hard work. Her parents looked to MLK Jr. for inspiration while chasing their dreams. Without a chance to chase her own, Louise gets pulled into their dream of building a duplex in East Oakland. Unfortunate timing—the height of the 80s crack cocaine epidemic!

Louise relates her remarkable story with charm and generosity. Still early in her late-blooming acting career, she pulls us into uneasy pauses with “Hey guys” and “Excuse me.” When she draws a blank on a musician’s name, she solicits our help. Her spontaneous, endearing pivot lands beautifully.

While playing the slouching, fast-talking, bullshitter DeMarcus, Louise is hilarious. DeMarcus convinces her parents to hire him, even though he is blind to their charity. We wait in dread for the pay-off.

Playing her younger self, her parents, and quirky neighbors, Louise moves easily between characters, conjuring “deep” East Oakland in the 1980s. With Blockbuster video stores and crack cocaine on every corner, Louise recounts a neighborhood awash with drugs and desperation. In the “Reagan years,” as Louise puts it, America was going “from sugar to shit.”

As a teenager, looking out over the empty lot where her parents envision a beautiful new duplex, she sees only piles of garbage, old tires, rusted cans, and broken bottles. The stench of urine is sickening. Where’s her dream?

With few choices, teenage Pearl finds a silver lining. She basks in the adoring glow of her brilliant mother. Self-educated and proud, her mom teaches herself how to survey their property using equipment that “only white men in yellow vests” know how to use. Now, Louise understands why her mom loved libraries.

When curious neighbors refer to other black folk as “these people,” her mom corrects them:  “Our people.” Her mom reminds Pearl about Louisiana, and her own parents’ hope for greater opportunity. Dirt poor, they scrounged for pennies and dimes to send to the newly formed NAACP. They were proud Black folk, contributing to a meaningful cause.

Onstage, a small ladder, a couple of boxes, and her dungaree overalls let us know that Pearl Louise is here to work. She does a terrific pantomime of hammering, pulling handfuls of nails out of huge boxes. She hoists walls, demonstrating the physical demands of the work, keeping her story moving. But one fight scene drags, and a dubious “hero” sends mixed messages.

“Time passes,” Louise says as we witness immense sacrifices to build the dream. Eventually, weakened by illness and exhaustion, Pearl’s mom asks, “What’s Happened to Our people?” Only then do we see her heartbreaking moment of despair.

But a surprise ending throws a bright new light on everything that came before.

We celebrate mother and daughter as Pearl Louise chases her own dreams. Don’t miss this beautiful limited run of “Pass the Nails.”

“Pass the Nails and Shame the Devil” –written and performed by Pearl Louise, directed by David Ford, assistant directed by Quinn Gilchrist, tech by Shaila Sarathy, at The Marsh, Berkeley. 

Info: themarsh.org – to May 23, 2026.

Cast: Pearl Louise (playing many roles)