The seven characters in Thoughts of a Colored Man are named Love, Happiness, Lust, Passion, Depression, Wisdom and Anger. I cringed reading this. Fortunately, monikers don’t reveal themselves until the end of the play. We’re never conscious of who’s ostensibly epitomizing what. Like Stephen Sondheim’s using words of one syllable in Pacific Overtures, writing in the style influenced by Haiku, playwright Keenan Scott II has challenged himself.
In fact, we never do learn the men’s names. Each, however, is easy to follow from vignette to vignette maintaining attributes, reflecting situations, adjusting to circumstances. “Who is the colored man? Is he the king…or a slave, a forced laborer…”
The piece takes a kaleidoscopic look at contemporary Black men in gentrifying Brooklyn. Grudging history of race is just a shadow. Not a single player lives the kind of anger of which we see results almost daily. There’s barely mention of abuse-by-cop or protests, though a drive by shooting occurs. Personally experienced mistreatment gets late-in-show mention. This appears to be a group of mostly educated, articulate men despite varying backgrounds and outcomes.
At either end of the stage we see two characters on their phones. One, using slight vernacular and percussive gestures, admonishes what we assume is a relative for sleeping in doorways. The other asks his mate whether to pick up anything on the way home. On the left, struggling neighbors are described. On the right, the cheerful man in running clothes boasts of two bedrooms, two baths and “not sayin’, but there’s an island in my kitchen.”
A Whole Foods box boy turned down an MIT Scholarship to support his mother and siblings. Still, “I can’t complain,” he shrugs. Amazing how a different norm is established. Homeboys that grew up together talk about women. The gentle poet wants to get to know a “sister,” while his crass friend (a Rhodes Scholar) prefers white girls. A teacher fondly says he has 126 kids he’s trying to teach integrity and safety. His list of defensive rules is daunting. Everyone hangs at Joe’s Barbershop, cliché but authentic. An older proprietor demands respect and decorum. Only from him do we hear history. The second chair is manned by a school basketball coach. Sports are on television. (One of the few ways, it’s pointed out, Black men congregate “acceptably” is on teams.)
In walks the new-to-the-neighborhood, upper middle class runner – having sourced the place on YELP – about which the room is sarcastic. He’s cheerful, friendly and naïve. Also gay. (We learn this in an absolutely delicious piece of stage business.) When the barber/coach refers to the outsider as “you people,” (Those taking advantage of urban renewal? Well heeled? Emulating whites?), we see how quickly sides are drawn. “I grew up too white for my white friends and not Black enough for my black friends,” the newbie says. “The thing is we don’t know what we don’t know,” actor Dyllon Burnside later shares. “I’ve always been a queer advocate. The day we talked about the scene I went to a barbershop, not my own salon. I was anxious about it….”
There’s a one-upmanship contest of how poor were we, a mother who got raped and a mother who tricked, an understandably nervous soon-to-be father, a long line for trendy new sneakers… Without extremes, Scott has illuminated bonding at a deep level and sets an example for navigation. Whatever you might thing about its balanced view (or lack thereof), Thoughts of a Colored Man is unequivocally wonderful theater. Acting and direction (almost choreography) are master classes. There isn’t a weak link in this ensemble.
Brotherhood is emphasized in an after talk to which we were privileged. Moderator Wayne Brady begins:
“Colored Man started as an undergraduate play 16 years ago. Do you feel you made it to Broadway now because the runway is open? Do you think The Great White Way is ready to compromise that name? When you called it this (utilizing the word ‘colored’), did you wonder whether you might alienate people?” he asks playwright Keenan Scott II. Timing is everything, Scott concurs.This iteration took five years to mount. As to the word, “I’ve always been a history buff. This is a play about stereotypes, tropes and labels…the term was purposely used.”
Each actor talks about initial reaction to the script, a role he imagined himself playing, and the extraordinarily experience of portraying these men as both a learning experience and service to audiences. “Honor” is uttered more than once.
Forrest McClendon got word he was cast in Amish country, both isolated and quarantined. He immediately felt the production created a safe environment, a place one might expose vulnerability. Esau Pritchett comments that over 20 years in the business, he’d never found an opportunity to represent the Black man like this. “Omona ride it till the wheels fall off,” he says grinning. “Finally we get to tell our story.”
Bryan Terrell Clark was naked in an LA pool when the offer came. He recalls living a fragmented version of himself and resolves it won’t happen again. “The rehearsal process was such a blessing, I could’ve been done after that. We saged the room every morning, stood in a circle and checked in…” Clark’s cousin died in a drive-by shooting.
Dyllon Burnside (Broadway debut) who waxes poetic in his role, notes, “You’re not going to see a show, you’re going to experience it…Think about the history of American theater built on the back of minstrel shows. We get to reclaim our time.” Tristan Mack Wilds calls the production “a weird, charmed experience…To be confronted with so much love and honesty…” Luke James (Broadway debut), who has a beautiful singing voice, says the process taught him “to dig deeper. This celebrates the men in our lives, who we might be or wanna be. We’re ourselves every night. It’s transformative.” The actor confesses to having cried when he first read the script.
“Unless it’s Dreamgirls or The Wiz, you don’t get to be in a room of other Black men,” Brady remarks. “Our culture hasn’t created a lot of space for Black men to come together, “ Burnside responds. Scott says people think they can’t relate if neither Black nor male, but his characters could be anyone culturally different. Tristan Mack Wilds (anger) says his personification is a box all Black men are put in, that “overt screaming is often imagined, but a lot of people do that on the inside.” Everyone onstage feels responsibility to the next generation of young Black men.
Apparently the cast often goes out together after curtain. It’s easy to imagine heads swiveling at Joe Allen’s when seven imposing Black men enter as an unalloyed team.
Robert Brill’s scenic design is a blank canvas – a tall brick wall (the fashion this year) and black metal catwalk create space an audience fills in. The giant screen facilitates projections.
Costume designers Toni-Leslie James and DeVario D. Simmons mix black, white, red, and grey to concoct what looks like middle class streetwear. It’s aesthetically pleasing if not character specific. Authenticity is lost to style.
Projection design by Sven Ortel offers evocative, well composed cityscapes. Te’La and Kamauu, Keenan Scott II create lyrics that land like traditional spirituals. These are ably borne on sound design by Mikaal Sulaiman.
Opening Photo Emilio Madrid
Thoughts Of A Colored Man by Keenan Scott II
Directed by Steve H. Broadnax III
Superb Casting by Calleri Jensen Davis
The Golden Theatre
252 West 45th Street
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