The Scottsboro Boys

I guess Blackface is in.  In what, I have no idea.  After A Behanding in Spokane‘s ridiculous black character and Lend Me A Tenor‘s Otello moments, The Scottsboro Boys one-ups them all and turns the minstrel concept on its ear.  In fact, the whole construct of a minstrel show is upended by Kander & Ebb’s latest “last show”, and done so with supreme excellence.

Using such a viciously constructed format to essentially deride the formula (let alone the concept) of a minstrel show to take a musical look at the Scottboro Boys’ historical experience is, quite honestly, a stroke of genius.  I knew the story, and still the emotional drive John Kander & Fred Ebb elicit during their songs balanced by David Thompson’s book was quite astonishing.  Overall, I think its the best newly constucted musical I’ve seen in quite some time, at least since 2004′s Caroline or Change – easily trumping the new constructs I’ve enjoyed since then, including Fela!, Xanadu, Passing Strange, Grey Gardens, Spring Awakening, In The Heights, Billy Elliot, The Light In The Piazza, & the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.  Easily.  Perhaps the best first-run musical I’ve ever seen.  Perhaps.  I’m not a huge fan of superlatives, but, I really feel this show deserves it.  And I’m not alone.

Thinking back on the show, The Scottsboro Boys is an excellent score, has a great book, is filled with generally excellent performances and is well directed (by Susan Stroman).  But, the composite of those is far greater than the sum of its parts.  There’s an interesting balance between drama, irony, and shame – each executed both as an individual emotion and in concert with the others.  Its somewhat hard to describe, but the feeling I had when those three emotional elements began working was so complex, so well constructed, that I was simply amazed in a truly positive way.  And that’s not easy for a cynic like me.

This isn’t the first time a group of white creative forces set out to deal with essentially a story that promoted white shame due to historical racism.  But that didn’t bother me.  Truth is truth, and art’s contemplation of truth, slanted as it may be, can often override any awkward intention so long as its forthcoming about its perspective.  And its timely, given that the Governor of Virginia, Bob McDonnell, recently honored the Confederacy (in an honorary month!) without thinking about the racist implications – which demonstrates how the racist tides that caused the Scottsboro Boys’ convictions back in 1930′s Alabama are still covertly at work across the country.

Aside from the politics of a racially-charged musical, the show is quite excellent as a piece of musical theatre.  Kander & Ebb brought the sounds of 1930′s jazz, blues, bluegrass and soul into a modern theatrical arrangement with flair.  Some standout songs (for me, anyway) include the story-initiating Commencing in Chattanooga, the tale of honesty Make Friends With The Truth, a very sassy Never Too Late, a harrowingly homespun Southern Days, and a proud You Can’t Do Me.  And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the use of actual blackface in the titular finale, which is devastatingly executed, from the minstrel show standard cake walk to a deconstruction of blackface for the final, powerful moment.

While the individual songs aren’t necessarily meaningful unless you’ve seen the show, most of them have the central figure, Victor Dixon Brown’s Haywood Patterson.  Patterson was the only member of the Scottsboro Boys who was never released from prison, refusing a plea-bargain, and dying from cancer in 1952.  And Brown is simply outstanding in this role.  Rather than being saddled with a noble black man role, Brown brings a complexity, thoughtfulness, and actual soul to the character, elevating him entirely.  His singing voice has some excellent range, and given his previous Tony nomination (The Color Purple), I’m very much looking forward to the rest of his career.

More notable in the cast are John Cullum, Coleman Domingo and Forrest McClendon.  Cullum has proven to be an excellent performer time and again, here as the only (actual) white man in the show.  As the Interlocutor, he’s ostensibly the show’s leader, but is constantly overrun by the other actors – intentionally.  To say he’s wonderful would be to elevate the roaming characters he plays, but he does a very fine job.

Domingo is someone I’ve enjoyed for a while.  I saw him in Passing Strange and his own one-man show, and he never fails to provide an arching, elegantly over-the-top humor, either on stage or on Logo’s Big Gay Sketch Show.  He’s become a theatre staple, and here he does his best to paint broadly a host of white characters that are supposed to be interchangeable.  Flair, indeed.  McClendon is his equal, although Domingo’s natural flamboyance serves him a bit better here.

Notable among the other “boys” are Rodney Hicks (he of a fantastic bass), Christian Dante White (last summer’s The Wiz’s Scarecrow), Julian Thomas III, and Sean Bradford.  Hicks doesn’t have any particular acting moments of note, but his voice stood out to me several times.  White is all limbs, and stood out in a number of dance sequences.  Thomas had some excellent, touching moments, with a few thoughtful interchanges.  Bradford stole a moment with Never Too Late, as a recanting white woman who had accused the titular characters of rape.  Just a great featured performance.

The rest of the cast is generally excellent, and most of them receive moments to highlight their skills.  Overall, however, my standouts were just that.  Truly memorable moments in a collection of excellence are hard to pick out, but I’m not exactly known for going simply.

At the end of the day, the composite of the production, music, story, and performances deliver a superlative theatre experience.  And at less than a hundred minutes, that’s even more impressive.  Although the show ends at the Vineyard any day now, the sold out run is just a stepping stone to Broadway, where the show will easily reign.  Hopefully, some of the Mamma Mia-Addams Family-Phantom going crowd will actually see something that has some depth and thought to it, and this show certainly deserves it.  Virginia & Alabama be damned.  There’s a history lesson here, one all too close to the current climate to be avoided.  And its an amazing piece of theatre.

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