Access Atlanta > Arts > Our Reviews > Archives > 2005 > February > 28
Monday, February 28, 2005
For Black Boys Who Have Considered Homicide…
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The verdict: A cathartic journey through the fury, fear and self-loathing shaping the black male experience in America’s killing fields.
“The male gender, cursed and colored black and too damn aggressive by just being born.”
“Take a number, any number. (Slur) are just numbers… (Slur) don’t count.”
“Don’t touch him…Â Black boys are not supposed to be loved.”
“Brothers, just cold ice melting.”
Six men spew — and then debunk — these notions throughout the intense choreopoem “For Black Boys Who Have Considered Homicide When the Streets Were Too Much,â€? the inaugural production of a promising theater outfit, Reciprocity Entertainment, being staged at Dad’s Garage through March 6.
We do not know their names. Only midway do we even get any means of distinguishing their identities: random numbers, framed in a cryptic lineup. The audience — so close in the intimate Top Shelf Theatre that we cannot escape — is a firing squad forced to face the stereotypes we harbor and impose. We do not know their names, and yet, we know them, having seen and heard their plights time after time on the evening news, in history books or in whispered tales shared at family gatherings.
One by one, circling a gutted tree of life and death, they conjure their demons with horrifying rage, humor and heart and force us to face it all.
Darius Ever Truly, stabbed in a shady deal gone bad, uses his last breaths to share how it feels to die alone, knowing no one cares, not even the paramedics whose charge it is to help sustain his life. Kelly Chauncey steps into a scared lad’s shoes, sobbing as he recalls how the voice of Nina Simone saved him from the monsters in his room. Daniel Kelly and Chris Gaither offer a glimpse into the true contours of a man’s heart after he realizes that his first time was an experiment, not an act of reciprocal love. And Carter J. Gaston powerfully re-creates the unjust reward one believer in the American dream gets for working late — being falsely accused of rape.
Under the direction of Geoffrey D. Williams, who masterfully brought Lorraine Hansberry’s Walter Lee to life last year at Theatre in the Square, and the deft choreography of Shane Smith, the cast, which also includes Johnell J. Easter and Will Cobb, pulses through other tales of grief, yearning, fear and self-loathing, sifting out myths along the way, to find the answers to a love supreme: a love of self.
More than 20 years after Keith Antar Mason penned his response to Ntozake Shange’s “for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf,” Reciprocity co-founders Erik Paulk and Robert Douglas have found an apt vehicle to begin their journey of “reconstructing images of black men,” one for which we can look forward to tagging along.
The 411: $15 adults, $10 students/seniors. Contains explicit language about violence and sexuality. 8 p.m. Thurs.-Sat., 7 p.m. Sun. Through March 6. Dad’s Garage, 280 Elizabeth St., Suite C-101. For advance tickets, atlantix.tix.com or (404) 346-1370.
Permalink | | Categories: Theater
‘Defending the Caveman’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
THEATER REVIEW: “Defending the Caveman.” Through March 27.
Its claim to fame is that it surpassed Lily Tomlin’s “The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe” a few years ago as the longest-running solo event on Broadway.
Rob Becker’s 10-year-old “Defending the Caveman,” now installed at the 14th Street Playhouse, is a glorified stand-up comedy routine that attempts to turn a single joke into a full evening of theater: Namely, men are swine and women are their sensitive, long-suffering truffles.
Though most of this material has been relentlessly exploited on late-night TV, performer Isaac Lamb turns it into a winning and likable evening that will prompt spouses to nudge their partners in recognition. Bearded and beer-bellied, Lamb’s a chipper physical comedian with a next-door neighbor’s charm. (Oops, there goes the neighborhood.)
The next time you’re at a party, keep your eyes on the bowl of dip and watch who replenishes it. Men are hoarders; women are gatherers. Men negotiate; women cooperate. Men are afraid of intimacy; women crave it. With little more than some home videos, a ratty-looking chair and a clunky TV that seems to have been plucked full form from a “Flintstones” cartoon, Lamb keeps the audience chortling for nearly two hours.
But if women speak 7,000 words a day and males utter a couple thousand, why is this man indulging in a rant that seems to go on for 30,000? Ultimately, “Defending the Caveman” doesn’t follow its own logic. Of course with ticket prices in the $35-$45 range, maybe it’s under a self-imposed word count.
That said, this is a harmless excuse for downing a couple of cocktails and enjoying a few chuckles. No thinking required. Clean underwear optional for the guys.
THE 411: $35-$45. 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays; 5 p.m. Saturdays; 3 p.m. Sundays. (No shows Sunday, March 6 and 13.) Through March 27. 14th Street Playhouse, 173 14th St. N.E., Midtown. 404-733-4754, www.woodruffcenter.org.
