For Color Girls: A Theater Review

The work begins with a call to the past.

“Aunt Mamiko was a girl of color. Aunt Efi was a purple girl, mother Lile was a colored girl, and you were a colored girl… / Imagine… If everyone talked to us, what would they say? / Imagine all the stories we could tell about funny colored girls, and / sophisticated colored girls and beautiful colored girls… who are you!” – says playwright Ntosake Shang as he transmits the sound. Public.

Her soft, excited desires fill the intimate space of New York’s Booth Theater, beginning with Camille A. Brown’s broadcast of a playwright’s canonical choreography. For girls of color who are thinking about suicide / when the rainbow is enough. The production, which opens on April 20, is serious about revival work, a pleasure to witness.

At any time for colorful girls Debuting at Booth in 1976, she shook the theater world in a sincere and experimental way that addressed the issue of black women. Seven women, representing the color of each rainbow, read monologues detailing and dealing with their experiences of love, loss, betrayal, separation and hope. His poems were combined with dance and music to tell these intimate stories. The genre-defying work Shange has been developing since 1974 was only the second African-American show to debut on Broadway. It lasted two years. Hope this version works as well.

The brown version of the product fills Shange’s already electrified works with a distinct, glowing energy. He left much of the original choreography (a term Shang coined to describe the combination of poetry, storytelling, dance, and music in this work) intact, but with the help of his dynamic actors, Brown, who directs and choreographs this revival, makes remixes. for colorful girlsManipulate sound and movement to reveal even deeper layers.

Establishing joy is the first order of business. The women perform on stage in characteristic style, wearing costumes by costume designer Sarafina Bush. Tremors in the thighs, arching of the eyebrows, knowing smiles: these and other small gestures appear again and again during the performance, filling the women with even more personality.

Woman in Orange (Amara Granderson), Woman in Brown (Tendai Kumba), Woman in Red (Kenita R. Miller), Woman in Green (Okwui Okpokwasili), Woman in Blue (Stacey Sargeant), Lady Violet (Alexandria Wailes) and D . ), together they form a brother. Her movements are flexible and playful, reminiscent of the ghost of a black girl.

Energy recalls Jamila Woods’ 2016 album Paradise. Like the album, Brown’s opening sequence reflects a thrilling night of double Dutch enthusiasm, secrets hidden in childish rhythms and sleight of hand, laughter and whispers about the beginnings of friendships.

The sweet mood is intensified when a woman in a yellow dress recounts the last night she had sex. The woods transmit contagious energy; The audience defends her every word. Stories, in the right hands, can be drunk and for colorful girls Enjoy this. Brown’s actors have such an intimate understanding of their characters that it captures even the most sophisticated performances. The marriage of Myung Hee Cho’s set design and Jiyoun Chang’s lighting helps us focus our attention.

Yellow passes the baton to Lady Blue, who with her history of staying overnight in the South Bronx, ignites the existing energy. However, the excitement doesn’t last; Work shifts to darker materials. These transitions are fertile relief, the foundation on which Brown builds in Shange’s work as a heritage garden. There is a distinct use of breath and guttural sounds that provoke visceral reactions to the narratives. Combine those vocal traits with the movements (bodies gliding across the stage, heads tilted) and all you have is a dark tongue that enhances Shang’s rhythmic verses.

Brown made other interesting changes, such as adding American Sign Language to the script: Wailes’ Lady in Purple signs her lines, which she then reads aloud to Granderson’s Lady in Orange. Participation stimulates our perception of Coreophem’s capabilities and reach. Therefore, I am interested in future performances that can further develop the play’s articulation by black women by engaging the experiences of trans mothers, daughters and sisters.

magic brown version for colorful girls It is that it forms a choreopoem by means of an invitation. Even the Red Lady’s devastating monologue about escaping an abusive relationship breaks the lines between viewer and actress; With a dark background and a single spotlight shining on the artist, it feels like the story is being told for you and you alone.

How visitors read or receive these invitations may vary. In a review, which was attended by this reviewer, a member of the audience shouted out to the lady in green (okkokvasili bright or tame), a positive and encouraging cry in response to the poem. Okpokvasil paused, absorbing, enjoying the interactive moment, until the energy transferred to the rest of the piece.

Location: Booth Theatre, New York
Cast: Amara Granderson, Tendy Kumba, Kenita R. Miller, Okwi Okpokvasil, Stacey Sargent, Alexandria Wales, d. Forest
Director and choreographer: Camille A. Brown
Playwright: Ntosake Shang
Decorator: Myung Hee Cho
Costume Designer: Sarafina Bush
Lighting Designer: Jiyoun Chang
Sound Designer: Justin Ellington
Projection designer: Aaron Rain
Hair and wig designer: Cookie Jordan
Original music, orchestrations and arrangements: Martha Redbone, Aaron Whitby
Dramatic Arrangements: Jaylen Petinaud
Musical Director: Deah Love Harriot
Music Coordinator: Aunt Allen
Artistic Direction of Sign Language: Michelle Banks
Cast: Eric Jensen, Caller Jensen Davis
Starring Nell Nugnett, Ron Simmons, Kenneth Titon, Ellen Ferguson and Vivian Phillips, Willett and Manny Clausner, Hunter Arnold, Dale Franzen, Valencia Yerwood, Audible, Dennis Grimaldis, Terry Nardo. Fiordellsi / Ciaola Productions, The Public Theatre, Oskar Eustis, Patrick Willingham, Mandy Hackett