Back in 1986, the Public Theater unveiled The Colored Museum, George C. Wolfe’s celebrated collection of brief satires regarding the “myths and madness” of African-American existence. Tonight, the Public Theater unleashed Ain’t No Mo’, Jordan E. Cooper’s bitterly comical look at serious matters about black lives in America today.
Grab a ticket, should you be lucky enough to find one.
Ain’t No Mo’ is a show so beyond woke that you may lose sleep pondering the many sharply pointed facets of blackness raised by this prickly 90-minute series of short plays. Cooper, who is only 24, acknowledges a debt to Wolfe’s work in a program note, but this piece is similar to The Colored Museum only in its revue-like format and aim to be satirical.
[Read David Finkle’s ★★★★ review here.]
Scathing in comic outlook and shameless in its frank language, Ain’t No Mo’ spins around the wild idea that the United States government is offering its black citizens free tickets for one-way flights to Africa, never to return.
At the airport, Peaches, a motor-mouth glam/drag queen and flight agent, urges laggards to get on board: “After this flight there will be no more black people left in this country, and I know y’all don’t wanna be the only ones left behind because these muthafuckas will try to put you in a museum or make you do watermelon shows at SeaWorld …”
As everybody packs up to go, the play delivers half a dozen imaginative vignettes that can be as savagely humorous and perceptive as they sometimes are sorrowful.
Probably the bleakest sequence is Circle of Life, during which Trisha patiently waits for her turn in an abortion clinic (she is number 73,545) while her husband tries to sweet talk her out of it. Trisha declares that she does not want to raise a child who will likely die long before its time.
Eventually it is revealed that Trisha is talking to the ghost of her husband, who was shot 11 times by a cop during a traffic stop. A significant remark that a character makes regards the current neck and neck race for equality and how black people are now at the critical point “where our opponent’s greatest hope is to kill us or be us.”
Perhaps the show’s high point for wicked hilarity is Real Baby Mamas of the South-Side, depicting a reality show program where four women, garishly overdressed—designer Montana Levi Blanco’s costumes for the entire production are terrific—snap and snark at each other as they boast about the loot they’re collecting in child support.
Eventually, three ladies angrily turn upon Rachonda, who was once merely Rachel, a drab white girl, but has since revamped herself into a trans-racial diva blacker than the others combined. Whenever the TV cameras go off, the women drop their exaggerated baby mama personas to argue about what actually constitutes race. Then everybody rushes off to catch their flights, leaving Rachonda cluelessly behind.
Nearly as amusing is Green, which involves a proud family of bougie aristocrats who refuse to leave America. Then they are suddenly confronted by a rambunctious spirit of blackness who represents everything they strive not to be.
Ain’t No Mo’ keeps returning to Peaches, a forthright shamen who fearlessly comments upon myriad aspects of black versus white American conflicts and even the wars that are waged among themselves: “Seems like niggas will never accept any nigga that don’t fit into their tiny idea of what a nigga can be,” she sardonically observes.
The playwright himself is all dolled up to portray Peaches, the show’s outspoken guide. Cooper proves to be a crackling live wire of a presence even as his play delivers jolt after jolt of electrifying comedy. Assisted through Cookie Jordan’s transforming hair, wig, and makeup designs, five other actors are extremely versatile in the excellence of their multiple characterizations.
Director Stevie Walker-Webb stages everything sharply and briskly, with presto-chango scenery by Kimie Nishikawa. Ain’t No Mo’ is one very smart, slick, satirical show that deserves a longer run than presently scheduled at the Public Theater. This exciting production is likely to do for newcomer Cooper’s career what The Colored Museum did for Wolfe who, you may recall, eventually wound up running the joint.
Ain’t No Mo’ opened March 27, 2019, at the Public Theater and runs through May 5. Tickets and information: publictheater.org
