All those targets deserve to be howled down to hell. ![]() Spivey and this wildly talented sextet weave their way fearlessly through Jackson’s tangy salad of show tunes, singer-songwriter pop, Hair -style anthems, and post-Sondheim noodling.Ī Strange Loop is profanely funny and courageously raw, but on a second viewing (I reviewed its world premiere Off Broadway in 2019), it’s also claustrophobically fixated on the wounds of youth, a howl of rage at gay lookism, white gatekeepers, and toxic Christianity. The actors playing the Thoughts, and a blizzard of other figures in Usher’s life, are the obscenely versatile and vivacious Antwayn Hopper, L Morgan Lee, John-Michael Lyles, James Jackson, Jr., John-Andrew Morrison, and Jason Veasey. When not standing around a Disney-run lobby in a silly red uniform, tapping a tiny xylophone to signal end of intermission, Usher’s home on his computer, sweating over his “big, black and queer-ass American Broadway show.” Interrupting the writer’s focus are six bitchy Thoughts that pelt him with self-doubt, financial worry, sexual confusion and other cheery topics. Usher gets his name from the fact that he is an usher at The Lion King. ![]() It’s a musical fever dream, more an expressionist song cycle than a traditional book show. That might sound like a spoiler, but A Strange Loop (gracefully staged by Stephen Brackett) is driven by anything but plot.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |