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In the song “Boundaries,” after Usher has a sexual experience that leaves him feeling used and diminished, Spivey sings covered in sweat, his pants unzipped. Usher is a role that requires the performer to bare their soul Spivey shows a hunger to be loved through his robust and clear belt, and his puppy-dog, expressive eyes.Īt the same time, the role requires a lack of self-consciousness: Usher’s self-loathing may sound beautiful but the feelings he sings about are ugly. It’s a beast of a role - Spivey never leaves the stage for the 100-minute running time, and he sings in almost every song. Jaquel Spivey, who plays Usher (in his first role out of college), more than understands the assignment. It is that dichotomy that makes “A Strange Loop” a musical masterwork.Ī concept musical can have clever songs, but it also needs a beating heart. He successfully mixes the traditional musical and church songs with the contemporary and profane - the song “AIDS Is God’s Punishment” is so rousing that you want to stand up and testify, except the song is completely homophobic, and is an indictment of church-sanctioned homophobia. Jackson’s music influences also run deep, from golden age showtunes to Sondheim to gospel music. The show’s lyrics are the cleverest of the season, with the opening number “Intermission Song” filled with rhymes that would make Sondheim proud: “They’ll say it’s way too repetitious/And so overly ambitious/Which of course makes them suspicious/That you think you’re fucking white!” It’s a rhyme scheme and rhythm that brings to mind “Putting It Together” from “Sunday in the Park with George.”
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The story within “A Strange Loop” would be tragic if it wasn’t also side-splittingly funny. Director Stephen Brackett and choreographer Raja Feather Kelly have given each chorus member room to add their own personal flair in the choreographed group numbers (no doubt each audience member will leave with a favorite Thought). And he is Black, which society shames him about.Īnd Usher has internalized all that negativity - he is surrounded by a chorus of his intrusive, demoralizing “Thoughts.” The chorus is played by six Black actors who refreshingly have different body types and different outfits (in neutral yet flattering tones from Montana Levi Blanco). He is gay, which his churchgoing parents shame him about. Usher is fat, which his doctor shames him about. Usher is a poor musical-theater writer, working as an usher at “The Lion King” (the choice to have “A Strange Loop” play on the same street as Pride Rock is a touch of producorial genius). But the best way to describe “A Strange Loop” is as a concept musical about self-loathing.
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“A Strange Loop” has a circuitous concept: It is about a Black gay man named Usher who is writing a musical called “A Strange Loop” about a Black gay man trying to write a musical (even the ingenious set from Arnulfo Maldonado is actually a successively smaller series of loops). In making the lead character a fat, Black gay man, within an industry (and larger society) that prioritizes and idolizes skinny, white bodies, Jackson is making a Black gay man an embodiment of the universal.Īnd he’s also written one of the best, and the most groundbreaking, new musicals of the Broadway season. He’s also successfully testing the conceit of how the universal is rooted in the specific.
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But as I am writing this, it occurs to me that what Jackson does with “A Strange Loop” isn’t just write a musical with catchy tunes and clever lyrics. Jackson’s Pulitzer-winning musical, I even asked my editor, “Am I the best person to review this?” What insight can a heterosexual cis Asian woman provide about a musical dealing with, “What it’s like to live up here/And travel the world in a fat, Black queer body”? And it’s not just identity Jackson’s musical also criticizes Tyler Perry, the racist and meat-market mentality within gay dating apps and mediocre commercial theater (okay, I admit that last one I completely understand).Īnyway, because the review schedule was set, and Broadway News didn’t want to overload its critics, and because “A Strange Loop” has lived rent-free in my mind since I saw it off Broadway in 2019, here I am now. What can I say about “A Strange Loop” that hasn’t already been said? When I got the assignment to review Michael R.