In his program notes for A Strange Loop, Michael R. Jackson notes the “tendency of theater critics to compare black playwrights’ plays to each other without making a substantive case for their comparisons.” So I hope he won’t mind my starting a review of his new musical—for which Jackson wrote the book, music and lyrics, as well as vocal arrangements—with a nod to Passing Strange, one of the most original and exciting works of the past 20 years.
My case: In the latter Strange, which passed through Broadway back in 2008 after runs at Berkeley Rep and the Public Theater, the genre-defying musical artist Stew spun a semi-autobiographical tale of growing up gifted and black in an environment in which religion and racism were sources of oppression, with a pungent, soulful score (crafted with Stew’s white collaborator, Heidi Rodewald). Loop—produced by Playwrights Horizons in association with Page 73—shares these fundamental ingredients, but here they are presented differently and baked into a piece that captures the cultural zeitgeist of the moment, combining unabashed navel-gazing with demands for progress on a larger scale.
The protagonist of this one-act piece is Usher, who introduces himself—in the third person—as “a young overweight-to-obese homosexual and/or gay and/or queer, cisgender male, able bodied university and graduate-school educated…” You get the gist. Usher’s name refers to a job he’s holding down while trying to forge a career as a musical theater writer, but it’s also, presumably, a wink from a writer who happens to share his first and last names with an even more famous (or notorious, at this point) pop and R&B star.
We’re warned from the get-go that Loop will be drenched in self-reference and analysis. In his notes, Jackson explains that the title refers to the term cognitive scientist Douglas Hofstadter used “to theorize the self as merely a collection of meaningless symbols mirroring back on their own essences in repetition until death.” That might suggest a very long 100 minutes, particularly when Usher, played by a deceptively cherubic Larry Owens, introduces us to his “Thoughts,” represented by seven additional actors who will juggle multiple roles in that capacity. “It’s your daily self-loathing,” one announces cheerfully, while another begins, “As the supervisor of your sexual ambivalence…”
But Loop turns out to be much more than the sum of Jackson’s Thoughts, relaying Usher’s journey with a fearless heart and wit that is by turns (or at once) scathing and exuberant, and laced, mercifully, with self-deprecation. Much of the show is sung, with whipsmart dialogue rushing into lyrics dense with au courant terms and references and wordplay, much of it concerning race, gender and sexual identity, some of it too raw to be reproduced here.
If no subject is too precious for criticism or mockery—faith, family, show business—Jackson’s affection overshadows his disdain. This is true even when he’s tackling Tyler Perry, a recurring symbol for the milquetoast entertainment favored by Usher’s parents and others in the more mainstream black community; In one of several hilarious bits targeting Perry, several late cultural icons, from James Baldwin to Whitney Houston, arise from the grave to chide Usher for disrespecting Madea’s creator.
Our hero thinks more highly of Joni Mitchell and Tori Amos, two of the artists feeding Usher’s “inner white girl” and, it would seem, the lyrical pop and gentle R&B textures contained in Jackson’s pointedly theatrical score, and Charlie Rosen’s accompanying orchestrations. (’90s alt-rock it-girl Liz Phair, a lesser musical talent but a memorable iconoclast, also gets props.) It emerges that much of Usher’s conflict, which extends to his creative life, is internal—or internalized, given the repressive forces that have surrounded him. His doting but disapproving mother and elusive father are represented in various guises, humorous and haunting, by the uniformly excellent company, which includes L Morgan Lee, James Jackson, Jr., John-Michael Lyles, John-Andrew Morrison, Jason Veasey and Antwayn Hopper.
But if Usher’s ambivalence can lead him into dark places—the musical’s most grueling segment pairs him with a man who has racist fantasies—his spirit is never crushed. Towards the end, he and his mother confront each other in a pair of sung appeals that segue to a soaring but irony-soaked gospel number, performed above Arnulfo Maldonado’s neon-screened, minimalist set, with singers standing next to a coffin, symbolizing a fate Usher’s mom fears for her son.
The sequence, like many in A Strange Loop, is entertaining, moving and disconcerting, leaving us a bit unsure of what a proper response should be. Laughter? Tears? Rage? I suspect Jackson would approve of all three, and add another: Engagement. When Usher sings, “I should stop overthinking/And do the thing that’s tough,” he’s urging that we all summon the courage to do that thing, however each of us defines it.
A Strange Loop opened June 17, 2019, at Playwrights Horizons and runs through July 28. Tickets and information: playwrightshorizons.org
