#PORN GAY BLACK 2021 SERIES#
Set designer Arnulfo Maldonado keeps to the same central structure of a series of booths in a row (like chambers in his brain for his varying Thoughts, or booths in a porno shop representing his various desires ?) But in several crucial scenes, he gets to go big – especially a scene in a church, complete with neon signage - as big as a Broadway musical, which is now what “A Strange Loop” is. Raja Feather Kelly’s wide-ranging choreography in one scene cleverly riffs on the standard Broadway chorus line, with each ensemble member presenting quirky individual movements even as at the same time they’re synchronizing their steps. John-Andrew Morrison is particularly arresting as Usher’s mother – that he’s a man in a dress doesn’t for one minute take away from his credibility or lessen the intensity – but nearly every actor has a monologue or a moment that sweeps us away.
But these fast transformations do not take away from their performances. Montana Levi Blanco’s endless supply of variously hilarious, easily read, and spot-on costumes add to the delight in the actors’ quick-change artistry.
Under the steady direction of Stephen Brackett, they are if anything more extraordinary, portraying Usher’s inner Thoughts, but also every other character that Usher comes into contact with, most memorably his not-always-supportive family. Other than Spivey, who joined the cast last year in the out-of-town try-out at Woolly Mammoth Theater in D.C., the six performers have been with the show since Off-Broadway. “A Strange Loop” offers the same 18 tuneful songs, illuminating and interspersed with a series of scenes of Usher’s personal struggles (with his self-esteem, with his love life, with his family, as well as with his show), and richly layered with skit-like episodes, witticisms, mini-parodies, complex erudition, and knowing allusions to Broadway theater. That so many people involved with “A Strange Loop” are newcomers to Broadway, some of whom have created great theater for years in the world beyond Broadway, is emblematic of how fresh this show is for a Broadway audience, and how welcome. Four of the six other cast members are also making impressive Broadway debuts, as are musical director Rona Siddiqui, choreographer Raja Feather Kelly, and Jackson himself, who began writing the music, the lyrics and the book for this show 21 years ago. Jaquel Spivey is now 23, making an impressive Broadway debut as the character Usher, who is an usher in a Broadway theater, trying to navigate adulthood and write a musical in his spare time. He has been working on “A Strange Loop” so long that the actor portraying the lead character in the Broadway production was a toddler when Jackson first began writing the show. It must be a hard habit for Jackson to break. But even on the final script sent to the press, there are a few last-minute tweaks, marked in red and blue ink. The changes since Off-Broadway have resulted in a crisper production with a more elaborate design on an obviously bigger budget. Tonight is also significant in that Jackson may finally stop working on it. And now, it actually IS a Broadway Show, opening tonight at the Lyceum Theater. This dazzling and dizzying musical about a big, gay Black guy who is struggling to write a musical about a big, gay Black guy who is struggling….has since won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Jackson’s “Big, Black and Queer-Ass American Broadway Show,” as the characters in the musical itself repeatedly call it, has changed since I saw it Off-Broadway three years ago.