| I was very much looking forward to Black No More, being a fan of the novel, and I was pre-disposed to like it, but, like earlier posters who saw the show, I was disappointed. Schulyer's novel is audacious, caustic and darkly hilarious, a satire in the spirit of Swift, but the show departs from the novel's plot in Act II and opts for something that's preachy and predictable, sententious and sentimental. I liked some of the music, though not the rap whose strained rhymes were sometimes wince-inducing, and I liked much of the dance. But the abundance of music and dance too often brought the plot to a halt and needs to be trimmed; where the novel, brisk and concise, comes in at under 200 pages, the show ran 2 hours, 45 minutes, about 30 minutes too long for this material. Brandon Victor Dixon was brilliant, of course, with just the right combination of charm and sleaze, and, gee, what a voice. And members of the cast who had the opportunity to play characters rather than caricatures (which abound in this show) were also outstanding, most notably Tamika Lawrence, Jennifer Damiano and Ephraim Sykes. I'm glad I saw it for their performances and for the hard-working and extremely talented ensemble. But I'm sorry that John Ridley, who's credited with the book, turned the sharp but funny indictment of race in America that characterized the source material into a fairly humorless morality play. |
