![]() Where Scott does shine (and Broadnax burnishes him) is in his dialogue work, which includes teasing conversations that slip deep beneath the men’s skin. “I found an Afrocentric descended angel that reminded me of Aphrodite, and I wondered what would be her aphrodisiac.” “She was like the perfect use of assonance,” Love (Dyllón Burnside) says about a hazily imagined woman. Luke James sings occasional musical interludes, which do add grace and gravity, but Scott’s own rhapsodic mode can be clunky. Tristan Mack Wilds has a monologue about the rules imparted by neighborhood elders back in the day, like “Respect your heroes, but know they’re not perfect.” The audience claps at this truism - and they get in the habit, so most of the 20 or so scenes end with a little ovation. ![]() (There’s something odd about the firmness with which the play asserts its don’t-make-fun-of-the-gay-guy bona fides right after making a joke about having a dog with “they” pronouns.) The gentrifier and the locals have a complicated conversation about what constitutes a neighborhood, but for the most part, the play straightforwardly states life lessons, many of which become applause lines. These include an encounter at the barbershop, where the requisite wise barber (Esau Pritchett) lays down the law about respecting everyone, even the swish gentrifier played (with brio) by Bryan Terrell Clark. “If you’re Black, you got a favorite pair,” says Lust (the comic standout Da’Vinchi), and the way the men laugh together about history, beauty, money, and clothing tells you more about their paths to manhood than the less subtle, more expositional sections. In the play’s best and most delicate scene, he and a few of the other men line up for the new Nike Air Jordans. He supports his mother and brothers on an insufficient paycheck his degree from MIT isn’t exactly useful while dealing with restocking issues. Depression works at an upscale grocery store with a name that starts with a big, green “Wh” (Sven Ortel did the tongue-in-cheek projection design), which partly explains his twanging tension. ![]() All seven men get equal time - though no one seems to have told Forrest McClendon’s Depression, whose electrifying energy makes him seem the first among these equals. Scott’s text shows us this “full dimension” via quick scenes, some only a few lines, others long and comparatively luxurious. It’s very specific, but it’s sublime - we are part of the American fabric, and we want to be known for our full dimension.” When I spoke to Broadnax back in March, he said “We’re hoping to add dimension to the Black male, and while doing that, claim that we, too, are America. Broadnax III nonetheless says Thoughts is partly an “homage” to the 1976 choreopoem. Scott’s language is less high-flown than Shange’s, but director Steve H. It is both like and unlike Ntozake Shange’s For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf, which also used poetic monologues, spoken by quasi-allegorical, quasi-autobiographical figures. Seven men with allegorical names like Happiness and Wisdom speak in casual banter when in company and flights of poetry when alone. Thoughts is Scott’s impressionistic portrait of Black manhood. “Welcome to my mind,” says playwright Keenan Scott II during the preshow announcement, and the drama - the exploded view of that mind - is explicitly about making visible what’s usually kept private. Every brightly illuminated choice emphasizes that Thoughts of a Colored Man has been designed to be seen from far away. As the characters visit various locations in their neighborhood in Brooklyn, the performers wander around and on the billboard’s metal framework. Behind the performers on the Golden Theatre’s stage is a huge white rectangle with the word COLORED blocked out in gray-on-white letters. The play also takes place on a sign - Robert Brill’s set is a gigantic billboard. In February, no one knew exactly how or when an opening would happen, so the display was a big, bold, crocus-yellow promise that the theater was going to return. For one thing, the show itself was a sign: Thoughts was the first new show to put up a marquee during the COVID shutdown. ![]() Signs play an important part in the episodic play Thoughts of a Colored Man. ![]()
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