Personal History follows an African-American
couple as they navigate three moments in
American life, stretched out over a century in
the city of Chicago. The highly educated
pharmacist Eugene enters the world of the
play in 1903, outraged that he is overqualified
and underemployed. At an elegant parlor party
hosted by his white business associate, Eugene
scandalizes the other guests by challenging their comfortable liberalism. He also meets his future bride, Bethany, herself an accomplished
business owner. Toying with time, the play has
the couple moving into this same home in an exclusive all-white neighborhood in the early 1950s. Race and class are further jumbled as the action shifts to the 1990s - the house is now a chic restaurant where Eugene and Bethany, divorced years earlier, have their final transformative encounter.