Just before the closing White Girl in Danger scenes, Michael R. Jackson, who snagged the Pulitzer Prize and the Tony for A Strange Loop, brings out Clarence, a character already seen throughout the rowdy proceedings as a cheerful, blue-uniformed janitor. For the late appearance he’s angel-clad and fey Clarence from “inner space.” He calls himself “your creator.”
In other words, Jackson, who put himself autobiographically in the thick of A Strange Loop as daunted protagonist Usher, has done it again. Here he’s Clarence, on hand to explain what he’s been up to for the nearly past — and too protracted — three hours.
Angry and determined, Clarence/Jackson explains through a sung-spoken harangue, “BECAUSE I LOVE ALL BLACK PEOPLE/I SET OUT TO HONOR US/BOTH IN STORY AND IN SONG/YEAH THAT’S WHAT I SET OUT TO DO/AND TO DISMANTLE ALL THE WHITENESS/THAT’S IN ALL THE STORIES/THAT WE’RE ALL FORCED TO CONSUME.”
He goes on to recall that listening to soap operas with a great aunt when he was a child is his reason for having framed the musical just witnessed as soap opera. (N.B. Anyone interested in Jackson describing his childhood television days outright can tune in to Hilton Als’ profile of Jackson, “Young and Restless,” in The New Yorker, April 10 edition.)
It happens to be a right good thing that Clarence passes the explication along, because not only does he frame White Girl in Danger as a soap opera, but he waxes extremely meta about it, too. And if he thinks meta is betta, it isn’t. He looks to have miscalculated with the whirligig approach.
The new tuner’s storyline takes place in Allwhite, a community intent on living up to its name and not inclined to give any leeway to neighboring Blackgrounds, where those in service to Allwhite dwell. In Allwhite, three mean girls monikered Megan White (Molly Hager), Maegan Whitehall (Alyse Alan Louis), and Meagan Whitehead (Lauran Marcus) reign supreme while being, respectively, a slut, a bulimic, and a masochist.
Furthermore, each is dominated by either Matthew Scott, Scott Matthew, or Zach Paul Gosselar (Eric William Morris playing all of them). (Is giving the women interchangeable names and using one actor for the men Jackson’s way of turning on its head the old cliché “They all look alike”?)
While Megan White et al are the toast of Allwhite, in Blackgrounds Keesha Gibbs (Latoya Edwards), daughter of cleaning lady Nell Gibbs (Tara Connor Jones), is bridling at being condemned to her station. She craves the Allwhite privileges. She doesn’t see why she can’t cross the Allwhite/Blackgrounds line to become a diversifying pioneer and at the same time snaring a privileged white boyfriend. She cares not when Mama Nell warns her that white-girl danger awaits.
Hold on a sec. That’s not exactly right. It’s not soap-opera figure Keesha as scripted who wants the change. This is where Jackson’s meta-maneuvering gets going full steam (and occasionally full steamy) ahead. It’s the Keesha character who rebels against being restricted to Blackgrounds. Outraged at her stultifying position, she sets out to commandeer the script.
Got that so far? If so, congrats, but the resulting actions may prove tougher sledding. So much so that the many ensuing twists, turns and runarounds are too dizzyingly abundant and too woozily confounding. Suffice it to say that this is soap opera – and meta-soap-opera — and like all soap operas, the characters are regularly plunged into every unpredictable predicament that soon enough registers as predictable predicament.
Of course, the Megan, Maegan, Maegan triumvirate form a competitive all-girl rock band that Keesha hopes to join on the autoharp. Of course, Keesha puts the moves on those randy white boys and is foiled. Of course, there’s a murderer on the loose in Allwhite, jeopardizing Megan et al. Of course, there’s a lesbian affair. Of course, Keesha triumphs, or thinks she does, and mounts a fashion show that costumer Montana Levi Blanco can dress in slinky glitter.
Of course, Nell — who’s been ratcheted up to nurse, then attorney general (of course, there’s a trial), then White House chief of staff – proves herself accurately prescient about Black Girl danger. Of course, Keesha, proved wrong, is contrite. That’s late in the second act, of course, when many Jackson songs have been sung but only Nell’s 11 o’clock number, “And That’s Why I Kill,” is sensational as Jones belts it, and little else has more adhesion than a Post-It.
Put aside that so much of the choral singing and the orchestrations are loud and often blurry. Put aside that cast members do their nearly 180-minute damnedest, as do director Lileana Blain-Cruz and choreographer Raja Feather Kelly. Put aside that the apparently enormous budget spent on lengthy opening act commercial-parodying videos are less amusing than crass.
At the end of the Allwhite/Blackgrounds day, Jackson’s soap opera conceit achieves little that he means to impart about Black lives needing to matter firstly to Blacks themselves. He’s all but conceding as much with the insertion of Clarence’s explication. Worse, it may even be that Nell’s advice to Keesha about crashing white society could be interpreted as Jackson advising Blacks to stay in their place. Unquestionably, that’s not what he wants to suggest, but there it is.
White Girl in Danger is not entirely a shambles or a sham, but it is a shame. It might even lead to some Jackson admirers wondering if they‘ve overrated A Strange Loop. They absolutely have not. All the same, any disappointment they may currently experience is understandable.
White Girl in Danger opened April 10, 2023, at Second Stage and runs through May 21. Tickets and information: 2st.com
