Perhaps the first praiseworthy statement to make about Keenan Scott II’s Thoughts of a Colored Man is that in the nearly two hours it unfolds not a single word spoken fails to carry the ring of absolute truth.
Perhaps the second comment—not meant as a criticism—is that Scott’s title is misleading. Something more like Thoughts of Colored Men would be closer to heralding the play’s immense power.
That’s because seven colored men arrive. Note that “colored” is a word not usually considered politically correct nowadays. Nevertheless, as the audience enters, the provocative word is seen projected on an upstage screen. (Sven Ortel is the projections designer.) The point is that Scott is using “colored” to resonate with woke patrons at a time of widespread gentrification.
[Read Frank Scheck’s ★★★★☆ review here.]
These men—six in a line, one on a low runway behind the others—have no common names. They’re identified in the Playbill by their most prominent emotions, another notable Scott notion eventually acknowledged before the lights fade. The men sharing their thoughts are: Love (Dyllón Burnside), Happiness (Bryan Terrell Clark), Wisdom (Esau Pritchett), Lust (Da’Vinci), Passion (Luke James), Depression (Forrest McLendon), and, last but hardly least, Anger (Tristan Mack Wilds).
Does Scott intend the septet to represent his spin on the seven deadly sins? No saying for sure, but maybe that’s part of the fun he’s having. What’s clear is that he wants each of the men to stand in for the range of emotions his characters feel. And more of the fun—although fun only covers part of his purpose—is to prompt patrons into a game of matching each man with his dominating emotion. That’s as the group interacts through a series of sketches and monologs.
I played the game with meager results. I rightly sussed out Happiness and Wisdom. (N.B.: The following might register as spoilers for ticket buyers.) The two I got were easy, certainly Wisdom, who dominates the longest sketch. He’s the proprietor of Joe’s Barber Shop, a Brooklyn establishment and hang-out started by the now deceased Joe. (All action takes place in Brooklyn.)
Joe sees it as his duty to assure that no one is dissed in the long-surviving business over which he presides. He’s challenged when a newcomer to the gentrifying neighborhood drops in—Happiness, an out gay man not immediately taken to the bosoms of the other five regulars present. Asked how he came to Joe’s, Happiness replies he read a recommendation in Yelp.
Unsurprisingly, The Yelp mention gets an audience guffaw as well as illustrates that Scott is strictly commenting on today’s Black men, each of whom, he wants to confirm, is his own man and not part of an easily dismissed aggregate. Yes, the n-word is used, but not often. Yes, many of the seven characters speak in what used to be termed Ebonics. (Does the designation remain in use?). And if any of the fellows uttered the often heard “Wassup?” I must have missed it. Wassup is Scott tirelessly stressing the difference between man and man and….
Those differences are powerfully underlined in a sketch where neighborhood neophyte Happiness encounters supermarket worker Depression, whom he earlier met at Joe’s. Happiness is just there to pick up a few items but wants to learn why he and the supermarket man, who’s pushing a cart through apparently messy aisle nine, dislikes him. What he learns is that his privileged upper-middle-class life is sweet, whereas the supermarket fellow’s depressed frame of mind has to do with having received an MIT scholarship he turned down to care for his ailing mother.
That segment alone demonstrates the spectrum along which Scott travels with determined aplomb. Elsewhere, a father, whose wife lost their first child, welcomes a son. A poetic fellow serenades the sky with his words. The lustful fellow takes about the contrast between dating Black women and white women. The legitimacy of LeBron James and Kobe Bryant is mooted. (Scott misses little.) The wise barber wisely reports that a man’s reputation precedes him into any room. Happiness suggests that money hasn’t changed him but that “money changes the people around you.”
And on it accurately goes. Before Scott ends his unceasingly cogent insights on the society-changing George-Floyd-Breonna-Taylor-et-distressing-al aftermath, he unleashes a sudden shocker that won’t be detailed here. He follows it up with a finale rap from all cast members—as they started, six in line and one on set designer Robert Brill’s runway above. As throughout, they’re directed for variety and verisimilitude by Steve H. Broadnax III.
Speaking, as I was above, of political correctness, I’m about to give the currently prevailing policy a tug of my own. I reiterate that Scott’s Thought of a Colored Man is for all audiences, but I submit that there are really only two audiences and that both will profit deeply from it. The BiPOC audience members will recognize and appreciate Scott’s understanding of who they are and what continuing indignities they experience daily. The white audience, realizing more in the last few BLM years than it historically has, will be taking in even newer revelations about a country so long and still too recalcitrantly the major societal and cultural influence.
For his perspicacity and for his well-honed insistence on perceiving and respecting the life of the Other, playwright Scott is to be profoundly thanked.
Thoughts of a Colored Man opened October 13, 2021, at the Golden Theatre. Tickets and information: thoughtsofacoloredman.com
