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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><img width=376 height=53 id="_x0000_i1025"
src="cid:image001.gif@01C8A493.49516D00"
alt="Right-click here to download pictures. To help protect your privacy, Outlook prevented automatic download of this picture from the Internet."><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<h1><b><font size=6 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:24.0pt'>In
review: Three theaters tackle tricky topics of race and gender<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></h1>
<h3><b><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:13.5pt'>by <a
href="mailto:tbrown@plaind.com" title="mailto:tbrown@plaind.com">Tony Brown /
Plain Dealter Theater Critic</a> <o:p></o:p></span></font></b></h3>
<h3><b><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:13.5pt'>Tuesday
April 22, 2008, 2:51 PM<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></h3>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><br>
<img border=0 width=240 height=159 id="_x0000_i1026"
src="cid:image002.jpg@01C8A493.49516D00"
alt="Right-click here to download pictures. To help protect your privacy, Outlook prevented automatic download of this picture from the Internet.">!<br>
<span class=byline>Karamu Theatre</span><span class=caption> </span><br>
<br>
The young lady in question wears a torsolette, lacy-thighed stockings and
stilettos. An afterthought of a skirt hides little of the panties beneath. A
fedora cocked over her ravenous eyes, her lips parted, she runs a finger up a
leg of my jeans. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><br>
The blacks in Karamu Theatre's creepy and brilliant "The Blacks" are
coming to getcha -- and all those stereotypes you secretly harbor and would
just as soon not have to deal with.<br>
<br>
Oh. She's black. I'm white. <br>
<br>
That moment didn't take place in a strip club or a hotel room, but it did send
lascivious synapses pinging around my aging neuro-system. It took place in
Karamu Theatre's production of Jean Genet's 1958 masterpiece "The Blacks:
A Clown Show," between an actor (her) and audience member (me). On top of
the smutty reflexes was the realization that I was projecting onto her what
"they" say about black women, and I was fulfilling what
"they" say about white men.<br>
<br>
We were living out our stereotypes, of each other and ourselves, dancing a
dance called by dark, primordial forces from our clannish collective
unconscious. The moment was the pinnacle of a weekend of drama in <st1:City
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Cleveland</st1:place></st1:City> about race and
gender that comes just as the race- and gender-charged Democratic presidential
primary process slogs a step closer to a messy resolution of its ugly-looking
end game. <br>
<br>
"The Blacks," produced brilliantly at Karamu Theatre, was joined by
"This Is How it Goes," about truth, fiction and an interracial love
triangle, at The Bang and the Clatter; and "In the Continuum," about HIV-infected
black women, here and in Africa, at Cleveland Public Theatre. <br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'><br>
<strong><b><font face="Times New Roman">Scary good</font></b></strong></span></b><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Genet, a white man from <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">France</st1:place></st1:country-region>,
produced an amalgam of Theatre of Cruelty and Absurdism, existentialism and
Negritude, for a postcolonial world. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>It became the longest-running nonmusical play off-Broadway in the
1960s, with James Earl Jones, Louis Gossett Jr. and Maya Angelou. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><br>
A group of black actors re-enact the murder of a white woman for a group of
whites, played by black actors wearing white masks. It's meant to be played to
a white audience, or to blacks in white masks. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><br>
At Karamu, artistic director Terrence Spivey and set designer John Konopka put
the action in our faces by cramming us on either side of a runway in the tiny
Arena Theatre. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><br>
The result, thanks to fearless performances by actors masked literally (by
costume designer Harold Crawford) and figuratively, is downright creepy. The
creepiest thing is having to come to grips with our own racism. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><br>
The cast performs delicious acts, scripted and not. Erin Neal sasses us with
her Angela Davis 'tude and 'fro. Saidah Mitchell reigns over all as an African
princess. Joseph Primes is a big, bad playa. As his girl, Andrea Belser clings
to him as tightly as her scanty lingerie clings to her. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><br>
I could go on at length about the 13-member cast and still not capture all that
is bizarre and disturbing and fascinating about this daring adventure. But the
whole thing is best personified by Jason Dixon as the clown-narrator, a
leering, gape-mouthed nightmare. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><br>
He's the black guy we white people lock our doors against. And we whites are
the people he locks his against. And onward we go, broken and bigoted, black
and white, raging and racist. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-style:italic'><br>
<em><i><font face="Times New Roman">Through Saturday, May 10, at 2355 East 89th
St. $20-$25. 216-795-7077.</font></i></em><br>
<br>
<em><i><font face="Times New Roman">Read all three reviews online...</font></i></em><br>
<em><i><font face="Times New Roman"><a
href="http://www.cleveland.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2008/04/three_theaters_tackle_tricky_t.html"
title="http://www.cleveland.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2008/04/three_theaters_tackle_tricky_t.html">http://www.cleveland.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2008/04/three_theaters_tackle_tricky_t.html</a></font></i></em></span></font></i><o:p></o:p></p>
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font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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