The Weekly Croissant: "A Strange Loop" on Broadway
Nobody asked for my review but it was great IMO
Last week, I had the pleasure of seeing Michael R Jackson’s “A Strange Loop” on Broadway. I don’t consider myself to be particularly in the know about the world of theater, but whenever I have the opportunity, I love to see a musical or a play. In June, I saw the revived version of “Cabaret” in London (amazing and dark), and the last thing I saw before that was “Hadestown” back in 2019 (waited 5 hours outside of the box office for rush tickets and if I had waited for 12 it would have been worth it).
I knew about “A Strange Loop” only because of its critical acclaim, (It won the 2022 Tony Award for Best Musical and Best Book, and won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2020), but I was also interested in its description, which sounded so removed from the story arc a typical musical.
As the title implies, the show is quite meta, following the thought patterns of a broadway Usher named Usher as he attempts to write a musical called “A Strange Loop”. It’s not as confusing as it sounds, since the work doesn’t focus on an external plot. Rather, it follows the mental journey of a self-proclaimed fat, black, queer protagonist as he wrestles with his internal demons, all of which are portrayed as external characters in the show. These “Thought” characters include Self-Loathing, Disapproving Black Ancestors, and an Inner White Girl.
Pictured Below: Michael R Jackson at the Tony Awards
I found this show to be innovative, emotional, vulnerable, and BRAVE. It is brave to air one’s innermost self-criticisms on the world's stages, but it is next level, and unusual, to call out specific people, and cultural touchstones, such as Tyler Perry and Dan Savage BY NAME in your Broadway musical, as Jackson does. Hilariously, his criticism of Tyler Perry is followed by a scene of historical black heroes such as Harriet Tubman coming to life and yelling at Jackson ‘Who the fuck is you?” which made me laugh for a long time.
It was an education for me, as a white girl, and as a consumer of Tyler Perry and Dan Savage, to hear such specific criticisms, and I found the fearlessness of the callouts to be refreshing.
Pictured above: Tyler Perry as Madea in “Madea’s Family Reunion”. At one point in “A Strange Loop” Usher says about Perry “His play are worse for black people than dia-fucking-betes!”
I don’t know how the art scene works in New York, but here in Nashville, people really don’t criticize other folks’ art publicly. This is in part because the town is so interconnected and you are probably friends with or friends with friends of the person whose art you are “talking shit” about. But I think also, it’s just considered rude, even if you are focused on the art, not the person. Something like “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all”. Music journalists rarely review something with less than high praise, they just don’t bother to feature it at all.
On the one hand, I like how supportive and communal Nashville is, and I love that folks are generally caring and kind. And I truly love and believe in most of the art that my friends are making. On the other hand, there are a lot of real conversations about art and creation that we could all benefit from having. And sometimes we all smile and stand around at a performance pretending we like it when I know perfectly well that if I asked some of the folks in the audience their true feelings we would probably agree that it was awful. I’m not sure if this is slimy or polite, but I personally haven’t been willing to risk my friendships or my career for the sake of artistic criticism, so I can’t fault others for doing the same.
For Jackson though, the stakes may be higher. He’s calling out these creators because he feels that they are harmful to his community. He’s trying to prove that there’s more to black art, to queer voices, than what has been previously accepted, to carve out space for himself and all of his contradictions and struggles. In doing so he has to fight through both internal and external oppression. He is up against the world at large, as well as his own homophobic parents and close-minded hometown community.
After having my mind and heart blown wide open by this show, I was sad to hear that it will be closing soon. The New York Times Michael Paulson reports that “A Strange Loop,” the winner of this year’s Tony Award for best musical, will close on Broadway on Jan. 15, after a short run that reflects the industry’s ongoing pandemic-related struggles and the challenges of marketing an unconventional musical that wrestles with complex themes”
This article was just another reminder to me that, in addition to the Pandemic wreaking havoc on all art forms, good art is sometimes/often/usually not the most commercially successful art. In the spirit of this newsletter, I will continue trying to support the risk-takers and truth-tellers, and try to ignore the constant pressure and capitalist temptation to cater to creating money-making art. Money comes, money goes. Can’t take it with ya!
This is more about musical artists, in which there are a ton of bands and songwriters who never got wealth or the fame they deserved for their work. One I always praise to my music-minded friends is the Canadian band, Sloan. They have been making great records with the same lineup since the early 90's. They are just a really fine Rock & Roll band, who continue to put out fine albums to mostly deaf ears...
All four members write and sing their own songs and will switch instruments on stage and in the studio. They are most popular in their native Canada, but can only pull theater crowds there and can only play to club-sized crowds here in the U.S. They are a band that continues to put out great music and are one of the finest under the radar bands on the planet. They will likely never get their due.
John Fullbright. While I’m sure he is doing just fine financially, and has been producing more lately, he is an extremely talented song writer and a captivating live performer that you can still see playing pretty small venues.