Fela! and The Pride

This month's Graduate Center Advocate includes my thoughts on Broadway's Fela! and off-Broadway's The Pride, two shows with a lot of buzz at the moment. Excerpts follow.

Some of Fela!'s scenes work powerfully, while others fall a little flat, but the point of this show, really, is the infectious, groove-based Afrobeat music. Oh, and the dancing: the most astonishingly athletic, committed, sensual, full-bodied dancing I’ve ever seen in a Broadway theatre.

Photo by Monique Carboni

. . Fela jokes, teases, rages, sings, and weeps, dancing the whole time. He also leads the on-stage band and the show’s extra ordinary ensemble, who take many of their cues from him. . . . A lot of actors have tried and failed to own the stage in the same way a rock star does, but Mambo’s Fela holds court convincingly.

The quality and energy of the ensemble can’t be overstated. The group dance numbers, from overtly sexual hip grind­ing to a spectacular variation on a Yoruba egungen ritual, are the heart of this show. Director and choreographer Bill T. Jones has put together an ensemble that rules the stage with grace, power, and spec tacular athleticism. As for the singing, Kuti’s songs only occasionally give the lead actor the opportunity to show off his pipes in an American Idol sort of way, but Lillias White, as Kuti’s mother Funmilayo, and Saycon Sengbloh, as the American woman who intro­duces him to the notion of “black power,” more than make up for it. Fela!’s design team also impresses, particularly lighting designer Robert Wierzel and projection designer Peter Nigrini, who both know when to use their virtuosity to dazzle and when to use it in support of the action on stage, helping to make the show as immersive as possible given the venue.

. . .

Elegantly directed and beautifully acted, The Pride is at turns moving and funny, but it is also puzzling and ultimately disappointing on a number of levels. The dual-decade struc ture cries out to be read as a statement on the state of gay culture, but what ever message Campbell has in mind is muddled. . . . Political inscrutability is not always a liability, but in this case it doesn't seem to be the result of complexity or individuality or even just dis regard for identity politics; it seems rather to be a play that is try ing to say some thing specific but can’t quite get its message across.

Photo by Joan MarcusA description of a pride parade in one of the 2008 scenes comes closest to clearing things up: “It’s a demonstration, a celebration, and a fashion show, in that order.” Whatever its flaws, The Pride has clearly struck a nerve with its audience, earning an extended run of sold-out houses largely on the strength of word-of-mouth publicity. More than a century ago, Shaw famously claimed that “problem plays,” plays that engage directly with social issues can only hold an audience’s attention for as long as the controversies they’re addressing remain relevant. When there’s no longer a “problem,” the problem play is forgotten. Based on the success of The Pride and its brethren, then, the closet door hasn’t been blown off its hinges quite yet. In the context of true equality, and true acceptance, there would be little need for assertions of “pride.”

Full review here.