There’s a palpable urgency to Keenan Scott II’s poetic drama making its Broadway debut after several regional theater productions. Revolving around numerous themes endemic to the Black experience in contemporary America, Thoughts of a Colored Man is the sort of finger-on-the-pulse work that elicits murmurs of approval from its audience, one that is more racially diverse than usually seen on the Great White Way. It’s advertising proclaims it to be “A New American Play for a New Broadway,” and the tagline doesn’t seem like hyperbole.
Set during a single day in an unnamed Brooklyn neighborhood, the intermissionless drama is composed of a series of short scenes occasionally punctuated with bursts of music and slam poetry. It features seven characters with archetypal names, performed by a superb ensemble: Love (Dyllón Burnside), Happiness (Bryan Terrell Clark), Wisdom (Esau Pritchett), Lust (Da’Vinchi), Passion (Luke James), Depression (Forrest McClendon) and Anger (Tristan Mack Wilds). Their interactions and monologues deal with such issues as urban gentrification, interracial dating, sexual identity, gun violence and thwarted ambitions, among many others.
Robert Brill’s simple but striking set design features a metal grid in front of a large screen on which the word “Colored” is prominently featured, along with various projections effectively delineating different locales.
[Read David Finkle’s ★★★★★ review here.]
Several scenes take place at a neighborhood barbershop run by the aptly named, elderly Wisdom, who forces his customers to put cash in his swear jar for using inappropriate language, including the N-word and gay slurs. For the men, it is a safe place, one where they can let their guard down and talk about whatever they’re feeling. Passion, a teacher, says that he tells his students, “Talk to God. He’s your best friend. And when in doubt, know that the barbershop is our sanctuary.”
It’s at the barbershop where Happiness first meets the others. He’s new to the neighborhood, having recently moved with his male fiancé into one of the new upscale apartment buildings that is rapidly transforming the neighborhood, much to the consternation of many of its longtime residents. Unaware of the newcomer’s sexuality, one of the other men makes a casual reference to a “fag,” causing Wisdom to eject him from the premises.
The evening is well balanced between episodes that are darkly funny (Lust’s description of meeting the condescending family members of the white girl he’s dating) and others that resonate with deep feeling (Wisdom rhapsodizing about his wife of 42 years, Passion emotionally addressing his newborn son). Director Steve H. Broadnax III expertly keeps the pace flowing smoothly despite the play’s disjointed structure and mingling of dramatic styles.
There are times when the evening inevitably recalls Ntozake Shange’s classic For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/ When the Rainbow is Enuf, although it’s less presentational in style. But as its title and character names might indicate, Thoughts of a Colored Man occasionally suffers from a generic quality, as if the playwright was more intent on putting his ideas across than fully engaging us. The characters often lapse into speechmaking—waiting in a long line to buy the latest Air Jordans, Anger asks, “When we gonna realize our buying power, instead of latching onto miniscule materialist items that give us a false sense of worth?” At another point, he urges, “If you really wanna help our young brothers out, stop making our schools look like prisons. And stop determining how many cells you gonna build off our second-grade reading scores.”
The play is actually at its most effective when it’s being the most specific. One of the best scenes features Happiness running into Depression at the Whole Foods in which the latter works. He’s astonished to learn that Depression had to give up a full scholarship studying electrical engineering at M.I.T. in order to care for his sick mother. He’s even more astonished that Depression doesn’t think that the situation was unfair. “If something needs to be done, I do it,” the financially struggling young man says simply. (By the way, did the play’s one gay character have to be the successful yuppie? Feels a bit like stereotyping to me. Just saying.)
Thoughts of a Colored Man feels overly emphatic at times, but it pulses with a theatrical dynamism that marks its young playwright as an important new voice, one that is fairly demanding to be heard. It’s a credit to the production’s legion of producers, which include such acting notables as Sheryl Lee Ralph and Samira Wiley, that it’s now being heard on Broadway.
Thoughts of a Colored Man opened October 13, 2021, at the Golden Theatre. Tickets and information: thoughtsofacoloredman.com
