In
review: Three theaters tackle tricky topics of race and gender
by Tony Brown /
Plain Dealter Theater Critic
Tuesday
April 22, 2008, 2:51 PM
!
The young lady in question wears a torsolette, lacy-thighed stockings and
stilettos. An afterthought of a skirt hides little of the panties beneath. A
fedora cocked over her ravenous eyes, her lips parted, she runs a finger up a
leg of my jeans.
The blacks in Karamu Theatre's creepy and brilliant "The Blacks" are
coming to getcha -- and all those stereotypes you secretly harbor and would
just as soon not have to deal with.
Oh. She's black. I'm white.
That moment didn't take place in a strip club or a hotel room, but it did send
lascivious synapses pinging around my aging neuro-system. It took place in
Karamu Theatre's production of Jean Genet's 1958 masterpiece "The Blacks:
A Clown Show," between an actor (her) and audience member (me). On top of
the smutty reflexes was the realization that I was projecting onto her what
"they" say about black women, and I was fulfilling what
"they" say about white men.
We were living out our stereotypes, of each other and ourselves, dancing a
dance called by dark, primordial forces from our clannish collective
unconscious. The moment was the pinnacle of a weekend of drama in
"The Blacks," produced brilliantly at Karamu Theatre, was joined by
"This Is How it Goes," about truth, fiction and an interracial love
triangle, at The Bang and the Clatter; and "In the Continuum," about HIV-infected
black women, here and in Africa, at Cleveland Public Theatre.
Scary good
Genet, a white man from
It became the longest-running nonmusical play off-Broadway in the
1960s, with James Earl Jones, Louis Gossett Jr. and Maya Angelou.
A group of black actors re-enact the murder of a white woman for a group of
whites, played by black actors wearing white masks. It's meant to be played to
a white audience, or to blacks in white masks.
At Karamu, artistic director Terrence Spivey and set designer John Konopka put
the action in our faces by cramming us on either side of a runway in the tiny
Arena Theatre.
The result, thanks to fearless performances by actors masked literally (by
costume designer Harold Crawford) and figuratively, is downright creepy. The
creepiest thing is having to come to grips with our own racism.
The cast performs delicious acts, scripted and not. Erin Neal sasses us with
her Angela Davis 'tude and 'fro. Saidah Mitchell reigns over all as an African
princess. Joseph Primes is a big, bad playa. As his girl, Andrea Belser clings
to him as tightly as her scanty lingerie clings to her.
I could go on at length about the 13-member cast and still not capture all that
is bizarre and disturbing and fascinating about this daring adventure. But the
whole thing is best personified by Jason Dixon as the clown-narrator, a
leering, gape-mouthed nightmare.
He's the black guy we white people lock our doors against. And we whites are
the people he locks his against. And onward we go, broken and bigoted, black
and white, raging and racist.
Through Saturday, May 10, at 2355 East 89th
St. $20-$25. 216-795-7077.
Read all three reviews online...
http://www.cleveland.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2008/04/three_theaters_tackle_tricky_t.html