The Milwaukee Black Theater Festival began three years ago as a community response to the killing of George Floyd. The quest for Black voices continues this year with a three-week festival that encompasses many events in and around Milwaukee. The best-known of these events is probably a full production of Ntozake Shange’s For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf.
This award-winning “choreo-poem,” which weaves Black women’s monologues with snippets of songs and dances, created a tidal wave of attention when it first premiered Off-Broadway, and then on Broadway, in 1976. Appropriately called a “poetic mosaic,” the play’s action is distributed among a half-dozen actors. Each woman is identified by a color: e.g., “Lady in Blue,” etc.
Some of them are young women, just beginning to feel the “experience” of how they are viewed by their own relatives, friends and lovers. Other, older women have seen it all. They reminisce on their lifetime of overcoming hardship and pain. They all echo the same chorus: the life of a Black woman in America is not an easy path to walk.
As the cast first enters the stage, blaring traffic noise almost drowns out the women’s first words (music direction by Antoine Reynolds). The women represent not just different colors, or different ages, but also different parts of the country. One is from Houston, while others are from New York City, San Francisco, St. Louis, Detroit, etc. Their experiences, regardless of the location, are universal. One young woman, for instance, talks about learning the basics of sex in the back seat of a Buick.
For Colored Girls covers a lot of material that is difficult to hear. A pre-show speech by director Linetta Alexander warns that the play contains a number of “triggers,” such as references to rape, abortion, other types of physical abuse, unwanted pregnancy, HIV, and so forth. These subjects are presented candidly and with a clear-eyed vision that is successfully transferred from woman to woman. Shange’s story is very powerful.
As each of the seven women tells her story, the others listen, attentively. They often nod and shake their heads as if in validation of the details being shared. With a hand on a shoulder or a hug, they silently convey that they have either experienced the same predicament themselves, or known someone close to them who has endured it.
One of the more uplifting segments is a monologue by the Lady in Brown (Selena McKnight). Reflecting on her past as an eight-year-old bookworm, she recalls falling under the spell of a man she reads about. It’s Toussaint Louverture (1743-1803), sometimes called the Black Napoleon. In 1791, Louverture brilliantly led a slave revolt in Haiti. It marked the beginning of a movement for independence in the French colony. Calling Louverture her “secret lover,” McKnight imagines meeting the heroic man and what it must have felt like to be in his presence.
Another standout moment is when the Lady in Red (Gabrielle Veronique) recounts her horrifying encounters with a man who recently returned from the Gulf War. Afflicted with PTSD, the man has evolved into someone that Veronique doesn’t recognize. As one of the youngest members in the cast, Veronique mesmerizes the audience with her performance. One truly feels the danger she is facing with this unhinged former soldier.
To be successful, a production of For Colored Girls must convince the audience that there is a real bond between the women onstage. That is certainly the case here. In addition to the Lady in Brown and Lady in Red, the rest of the cast consists of Tosha Freeman (Lady in Orange), Brielle Richmond (Lady in Green), Deja Taylor (Lady in Yellow), Tina Nixon (Lady in Blue) and Brandite “Brandi” Reed (Lady in Purple). The actors’ work in For Colored Girls is enhanced immeasurably by the show’s technical aspects. The opening set is a graffiti-covered, urban bus stop (set design by Lilliana Gonzalez). It is illuminated brilliantly (by lighting designer Maaz Ahmed). The onstage action is occasionally accompanied by a series of projections (by projection designer Nathan Berry). The projections add just the right touch when it’s needed.
All in all, For Colored Girls is a not-to-be-missed experience. One can view it as a cautionary tale that explores the experiences of many Black women. Each one is a survivor, who did what was necessary to tell the tale of their life.
For Colored Girls is a great chance to see a range of local acting talent in the same production. About half of the cast grew up in Milwaukee. Selena McKnight has performed with the Ko Thi Dance Company, while Brandi Reed has been seen on a number of local stages, especially Skylight Music Theater. She appeared in the Skylight productions of Little Shop of Horrors and The Full Monty. A couple of the actors have appeared in Milwaukee productions of Black Nativity, a show which is performed annually. Tosha Freeman has appeared in shows staged by Skylight, Milwaukee Chamber Theatre, First Stage and Acacia Theatre.
