![]() ![]() But there’s a tendency with rap to perform concert-style, directly addressing the audience rather than engaging with other people onstage. Williams, best known for the 1998 Sundance winner Slam, and Jackson, who starred on Broadway in the more upbeat, Latin-flavored rap musical In the Heights, are both charismatic presences whose contrasting intensities work well together. In one of the rare moments when there is an organic progression from one song to the next - the guys’ macho swaggering on “I Get Around” prompting the ladies’ proud response with “Keep Ya Head Up” - choreographer Wayne Cilento‘s staging has the kitschy, ‘90s-retro feel of a Fly Girls dance break from In Living Color. The music mostly just reiterates the same point about the need for change to end the violence. But while the frequent musical transitions from spoken word into melody can be energizing, particularly in ensemble numbers, there’s little plot momentum or character exploration. A street preacher ( John Earl Jelks) bears solemn witness to the struggle around him, but he remains a symbolic presence in a story that desperately needs flesh and blood characters.Ī buzz of recognition spreads through the audience when popular Tupac anthems begin - among them “Dear Mama,” “Whatz Next,” “California Love,” “Me Against the World,” “If I Die 2Nite,” “Thugz Mansion” and “Ghetto Gospel.” Themes of love, family, honor, identity and community are embedded in those lyrics. The soulful Sengbloh is every self-possessed girlfriend smart enough to move on rather than wait for her man to serve out his jail time. Tonya Pinkins is every African-American mother who ever grieved for a child lost to senseless gang violence. One of the key issues is that the actors, no matter how talented, have nothing but hackneyed outlines to play. ![]() ![]() PHOTOS Hollywood on Broadway: Denzel Washington, Daniel Craig and More Stars Onstage It doesn’t help us to distinguish Benny from the other interchangeable characters or feel his loss when it occurs a short way into the show. The fact that Benny was nurturing a dream to flee the ghetto and start a new life, opening an auto-shop in California with his mechanic pal Griffy ( Ben Thompson), is just one more tired narrative ingredient. That becomes difficult when innocent local kid Benny ( Donald Webber Jr.) catches a bullet intended for his older brother, drug-dealer Vertus ( Christopher Jackson), and the victim’s friends push for retaliation against the gang that shot him. But he remains emotionally locked away, keeping his buddies and his former girlfriend Corinne ( Saycon Sengbloh) at a distance. But what we get instead is a bland, black West Side Story with a lot of sermonizing about social ills and a rumble that never happens.ĭirector Kenny Leon, fresh from a Tony win for A Raisin in the Sun, introduces the brooding central figure of John ( Saul Williams) as he descends in an elevator cell and sheds his orange prison jumpsuit to return home after six years inside. The decision to set the show in an unnamed Midwestern industrial city and establish the time as now makes sense, aiming for universality while avoiding associations with the East Coast-West Coast hip-hop feud of the early ’90s. But Kreidler, whose main credentials come via his association with revered playwright August Wilson, borrows from countless urban-aggression screen dramas of the past two decades, bringing very little that feels vital or original to the table. The storytelling approach of stitching a narrative fabric around thematically related songs is similar to what Michael Mayer and Billie Joe Armstrong achieved so excitingly with Green Day’s American Idiot. That might have been rich fodder for a gritty musical in more skilled, less literal hands. ![]() But the enduring legacy of his politically charged lyrics is one of sorrow at the vicious cycle of violence bred out of entrenched racism, poverty and police profiling. During his lifetime, his divisive music was considered contradictory, often seeming to condemn the brutality of gangsta rap culture in one breath and celebrate its flashy excesses in the next. One of the most influential figures in hip-hop, Shakur’s stature has continued to grow in the 18 years since the rapper was killed in a drive-by shooting at age 25. 'The Lion King' After 25 Years: How a Broadway Hit Stages 10 Shows Around the Globe ![]()
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