Monday, Jun. 14, 1976
He Done Her Wrong
By T.E . Kalem
FOR COLORED GIRLS WHO HAVE CONSIDERED SUICIDE/ WHEN THE RAINBOW IS ENUF by NTOZAKE SHANGE
In poetry, the self wrestles with the self. In drama, the self wrestles with others. It is difficult to reconcile these disparate angles of vision. Ntozake Shange almost succeeds, and she has created a poignant, gripping, angry and beautiful theater work.
Seven black actress-dancers, costumed in solid colors with the stark simplicity of a Greek chorus, deliver dramatic monologues about being black, blue, and bruised by love. The tension of the evening stems from two separate strands of emotion. On the one hand, these monologues are portraits in embittered pain, the basic proposition being, "He done her wrong." On the other hand, they demonstrate the concentric power of love in a woman's life. If Playwright Shange had chosen an epigraph for her play, the one most suited to it is the one that in her militantly feminist way she would not have chosen: By ron's "Man's love is of man's life a thing apart; 'tis woman's whole existence."
If they can see themselves through Shange's eyes, black men are going to wince. They are portrayed as brutal con men and amorous double-dealers. A segment called "Dark Phrases," featuring Janet League, telescopes a black wom an's experience, and in a cruel tale of love and blood lust called "A Nite With Beau Willie Brown," Trazana Beverley brings the audience to a culminating gasp of agony. An altogether excellent cast not only dances but delivers lines with a revivalist fervor that might have inspired Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the fiery furnace.
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