Sitting down in my front-and-center seat at Culbreth to see For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/ When the Rainbow is Enuf, I didn't know what to expect. When I had mentioned I would review this play -- or "choreopoem" -- I got mixed reactions from my peers, but mostly I was told that For Colored Girls... is a pretty weird play.
After seeing it, I can see why some people might be uncomfortable. For Colored Girls... creates a dreamy, floating environment for the vivid characters whose words and emotions burst off the stage with such intensity that the audience doesn't know what hit it.
At the beginning, a voice tells the audience to "feel free to laugh, cry, shout out" and I found myself taking these words to heart as I watched the ladies dressed in red, blue, brown, purple, green, orange and yellow share their struggle as colored girls in America and their journey to "sing a black girl's song..." -- to know themselves.
The ladies open the play with catchy grade school songs such as "Mama's Little Baby Likes Shortenin' Bread" and oldies like "Dancing in the Street," complete with the women dancing in a modified Soul Train line.
The ladies belt out tunes and twirl around with emotion reminiscent of a sing-along at a young girls' slumber party. At the opening performance, the blissful energy from this first scene (titled "dark phases") drew quick laughter and a "This is awesome" comment from an audience member.
However, the tone of the play becomes darker as each character shares a story of happiness followed by one of great sorrow. Two powerful scenes, the poems "latent rapists'" and "abortion cycle #1," seize the audience's attention. The ladies in red, blue and purple address the startling reality of how the "nature of rape has changed" from stranger rape to acquaintance rape. They say, "a friend is hard to press charges against."
Then, the lady in blue gives a monologue about her abortion that captures the pain of the experience in a way that is chilling and real. Last weekend, her wailing and suffering caused the audience to be completely still -- you could've heard a pin drop after her monologue.
The words of author Ntozake Shange are moving enough on their own, but the great acting surely helps increase the intensity of the monologues. The ladies in red and blue, played by fourth-year drama students Lynn Blaney and Kassidy Ann Bynoe, had the most emotionally demanding parts. These actors do so well that they almost pass off the experiences as their own.
Despite an underlying theme of hurt, this ensemble also works well together to present a story of survival and love through celebration in song, dance and poetry. Apprehensive audience members, take note: the only "weird" thing about For Colored Girls... was the unique ability of the ensemble to openly share the intense struggle of African-American female experience.
See For Colored Girls... at Culbreth Theatre tonight and November 12, 14 and 16 at 8 p.m.
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