April First Flashback!

I'm getting ready to head home for a little break, and to celebrate my nephew who will be sixteen and that will make me feel old.  To leave a little something something behind, I present an April 1 flashback.  I thought about a jokey April Fools post, but changed my mind.  I vividly remember seeing the show discussed below, both Off- and on Broadway. Once, I saw the Broadway production from the front row and let me tell you - it was incredible to be so close to the sheer theatricality.  This show was never less than thrilling to me.  I was heartbroken it didn't win every award known to us and I can only hope, over time, it will take its place in the upper tiers of the American musical theater canon...

4/1/10:  I’m on a break from new database training, so I thought I’d jot down a few thoughts from seeing the Kander and Ebb musical, The Scottsboro Boys, at the Vineyard last night.  This show seems to be one of those shows that people really love or really dislike intensely.  And I landed towards ‘really love'...

The program states ‘this is a fictional play based on real event.’  I gather they’ve taken some liberties, but the basic premise of the story of these unjustly accused boys remains. The show is framed with a minstrel show performance.  John Collum plays the Interlocutor, our seemingly benign master of ceremonies.  Two other performers play stock minstrel performers, Mr. Bones and Mr. Tambo.  They play various characters throughout the evening, including most of the white characters.  Using the minstrel show device really points up the ugliness of the racism of the time.  It forces us to acknowledge it.  The show is provocative, yet has the Kander and Ebb ‘razzle dazzle’ touch.  Most of the time, the dichotomy is very effective.  There is a hideously horrible, yet fascinating, tap number that represents one boy’s fears of the electric chair.  The song where the prosecutor sings about ‘Jew money’ is terrifying, in a great theatrical way, and staged gorgeously.  

photo credit: Carol Rosegg

This isn’t an easy musical to watch—the blatant racism and excoriation of white Southern authority is squirm-inducing at times, which seems to be the point.  But the songs are never less than interesting (some are quite terrific), the staging and choreography is good, the set and lighting is spot on, and the performances are all fantastic.  My heart was breaking for these boys, though the minstrel show takes you out (purposefully, I think) and makes it hard to stay emotionally engaged.  Even though I struggled throughout some of the show to stay with it, I have to say the last twenty minutes or so are some of the most shattering theatrical moments I’ve ever seen in my life.  I was weeping, loudly sobbing, throughout the last number.  It was fabulously harrowing, if you know what I mean.  A theatrical moment I’ll remember forever.  Then, there’s a coda that should’ve been apparent from the beginning, but I missed it, so I almost completely lost control when it happened.  SOOOO moving to me.  I’m crying right now thinking about it.

I give this show a big thumbs up, though I will acknowledge I know quite a few people who hated it and there were a few walk-outs last night, even though the show is running with no intermission.  In fact, it’s running nearly two hours, so it could maybe be trimmed a bit, especially in the scenes leading into the finale.  It meanders a bit there, though once it gets to the finish, I was jolted upright.  They apparently want to move this to Broadway—I don’t know.  It’s so dark and odd and unique, I’m not sure how it will fare.  But more power to them.  If it goes to Broadway, I'll for sure go see it again.