For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide Movie Review
"For Colored Girls Who Take Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf" at The Public Theater (Photo: Joan Marcus)
It shouldn't come up as a shock that the 7 protagonists of For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf are respectful and kind to one some other. Ntozake Shange's 1976 choreopoem was (and continues to exist) a milestone in black feminist drama – a dynamic work of poetry in motion about the glories and struggles of contemporary black women. And withal, the soft smiles and quick glances between the women, the way i slides over in her seat to make room for another, create a pity that extends to the audition, who may hopefully extend it outside the theatre.
In Leah C. Gardiner'southward production at The Public Theater, this communal energy is generated from the outset, with Myung Hee Cho'south set suggesting a come up-one-come up-all dance floor, complete with mirrored walls and dangling disco assurance. The audience completely surrounds the space, and every bit the women slowly gather onstage and detect their rhythms and movements, we are made aware of the immense physical endeavour required to share the stories that will follow.
Not that these performances are labored, or over-rehearsed, fifty-fifty if the choreopoem format – somewhere between slam poetry and dance (courtesy of Camille A. Dark-brown, who blends pace, vogue and hip-hop into more traditional interpretive dancing) – indelibly ties their lush movement to their words. No, the cast is fresh and vibrantly alive, generously giving speakers approving nods and snaps, or echoing their words with their own affirmations. You get the sense that no two performances could exist the same. Information technology'due south the kind of customs these women need, an inclusive space they have created for themselves and anyone who needs it. Still specific their stories may be, they remain anonymous, referred to by the colour of their wearing apparel (Lady in Bluish, Lady in Orange, etc…). The rainbow they create becomes the beauty at the core of their existence.
And, God, is that dazzler hard to find sometimes. On they go through their personal histories – sometimes alone, as when Lady in Red (a fierce Jayme Lawson) recounts a toxic relationship turned tragic; sometimes together, every bit when the Ladies in Yellowish, Blueish, and Purple join each other in lamenting that "a friend is hard to press charges against." Merely the dazzler is at that place, if sometimes only in the radical human activity of sharing one's story and hearing themselves in others'. The strongest moments in an accommodating stellar product happen with the entire bandage onstage, as when they dance while proclaiming their love equally "too fragile, too beautiful, also sanctified" to exist thrown back in their faces.
It's not all downtrodden tragedies on the path to that trip the light fantastic of affirmation, though, and Gardiner and her cast deftly maintain the tone from veering into sob-story melodrama, equally Tyler Perry's 2010 film accommodation did. The most painful stories are given their due weight, but balanced by the cast's agile presence for ane another. The lighter moments feel as potent every bit the heaviest, as in Lady in Green's (Okwui Okpokwasili, in a breakout functioning) denunciation of a lover who almost "walked off wid alla my stuff." This Lady did not come up to play, simply she is less interested in shaming her ex with a grand Feminist monologue than she is in finding the comedy in coming to terms with a bad situation which will, hopefully, never repeat itself after its public venting.
What volition hopefully echo itself is the joy felt when Lady in Blueish (a golden-voiced Sasha Allen) allows her powerhouse vocals to fluidly meander through a number about dreaming with "the souls of black folks." Or in seeing Lady in Purple (the deaf actor Alexandria Wailes) dance out a story of dearest and beauty in the bayou.
It's a traumatic world outside the comfortable Public Theater, and Malcolm X was not vying for woke points when he said that the most neglected person in America is the black adult female. But then, Shange was not aiming for tragedy in composing this glorious vision of an inner landscape seldom given this much intricacy and life. There is simply so much praise this (White) Venezuelan male critic can heap onto this work without falling into Liberal back-patting, but this production is unwavering in its honesty, allowing the sharing of deeply personal stories the space it deserves, portraying emotional truths while assuasive united states to notice them in our ain lives.
Source: http://exeuntnyc.com/reviews/review-colored-girls-considered-suicidewhen-rainbow-enuf-public-theater/
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