Black Man Textbook: A less than Ta-Nehisi review of ‘Thoughts of a Colored Man.’
Until Ta-Nehisi Coates gives his impression of Director Steve H. Broadnax III and writer Keenan Scott II’s stage play THOUGHTS OF A COLORED MAN, I offer the following reflections.
I was not ready. For the powerful medium of theatre; For the quality of writing and performance and synergy of the play itself; For the cultural snapshot of the black male reality and the historical, psychological, pedagogical, spiritual approach that Thoughts of a Colored Man laid bare.
In all it’s complexity, the play had such a smooth flow to it. And yet I wouldn’t visualize it as a stream as much as a burst or a blaze. Connected to a core of great direction and stellar writing were these characters and dancers who shot out from the stage like rays from the sun. Each of them salient.
And so in addition to not being ready for the play, I was not prepared for the cast. What is acting when the performer no longer becomes an actor at all, but you really experience them as the character? Where does reality start when the actor becomes real to you? These are the types of questions I’ve had to ask myself after experiencing the performances of Reynaldo Piniella as Lust, Jerome Preston Bates as Wisdom, and the rest of the fruits of the flesh and the fruits of the spirit represented in…
