By Brian Scott Lipton . . .
Watching White Girl in Danger, the latest musical by Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winner Michael R. Jackson, is a bit like spending a three-hour meal with someone who insists on having an entire conversation with his mouth full. You know he’s trying to tell you something important, but you just only make out bits and pieces of what he’s trying to say!
As with his debut piece, A Strange Loop, Jackson clearly wants to discuss the role of Black people in America and their relationship to the white majority. But unlike the former show, an economically-told piece that came straight from Jackson’s heart, this overly convoluted musical – a co-production of the Vineyard Theatre and Second Stage (whose Tony Kiser Theater is home to the show) – seems to come more from his head and is a whole lot harder to parse.
Lauren Marcus, Molly Hager, Latoya Edwards, and Alyse Alan Louis
It doesn’t completely help that White Girl in Danger is presented through a faux soap opera of the same name, complete with such tropes as cheating boyfriends, alcoholic mothers, charity fashion shows, tear-filled murder trials, and possibly deadly diseases. (Jackson has been watching daytime dramas since he was a kid; as someone who has been watching them even longer, I got all the jokes!) I am just not sure this was the best choice; first, it is sometimes hard to tell if the actors are playing actual characters or just their soap opera characters; secondly, soap-watching is no longer part of most people’s daily lives.
Regardless, the premise (both of the show and the show-within-the-show) is admittedly quite smart. In the aptly named town of AllWhite, black characters have been shunted to the “blackground” – stuck in the minor roles of drug dealers, maids and actual slaves (!) — until the surprising day that Keesha (Alexis Cofield, standing in for LaToya Edwards) is suddenly promoted to playing the best friend of the soap’s three screwed-up heroines: Meagan White (Molly Hager), Meagan Whitehall (Alyse Ann Louis) and Meagan Whitehead (Lauren Marcus).
Lauren Marcus and Liz Lark Brown
Keesha quickly discovers that her new-found status doesn’t make her much more prominent; the show’s “all-white” writer finds constant excuses not to let Keesha do anything such as join the girls’ band, even after its fourth (unseen) member is found dead in the woods at the hands of the “AllWhite Killer.”
Eric William Morris
Ambitious and determined, Keesha tries to muscle her way into a leading role, attempting to sleep with all three of the girls’ boyfriends (all played by a chameleonic Eric William Morris) and trying her damndest to make herself a victim of the serial killer. (Be careful what you wish for!) She ultimately does end up as the star (and possibly president of the United States?), but, as in life, what goes up does come down.
Director Lileana Blain-Cruz, who somehow made more sense of Thornton Wilder’s tricky The Skin of Our Teeth last season, can’t quite perform the same magic here, and Raja Feather Kelly’s choreography seems less inventive than in some of his previous outings. (Montana Levi Blanco’s costumes are, as always, fabulous!)
Tarra Conner Jones
Meanwhile, the show’s entire cast works really hard to put this complicated material across — none more so than the absolutely fabulous Tarra Conner Jones as Keesha’s no-nonsense mom, Nell Carter Gibbs. (Yes, Jackson also throws in a lot of a musical theater in-jokes, none more wonderful that allowing Jones to let loose with a blistering 11 o’clock number that mimics “I Know Where I’ve Been” from Hairspray.) Someone needs to get her on Broadway stat!
And should you be wondering why the wonderful James Jackson Jr. has been relegated to the tiny role of on-set janitor Clarence, rest assured he will eventually have his moment in the spotlight: a lengthy, end of the show monologue which brilliantly explains not only what we’ve been watching, but why we’ve been watching it.
James Jackson Jr.
After hearing it, I wondered if Jackson would have better served his own cause if this epilogue had been presented as prologue, making White Girl in Danger a little “safer” to watch.
White Girl in Danger continues at the Tony Kiser Theatre ( 305 West 43rd Street) through May 21. For tickets and information, visit 2st.com
Photos: Marc J. Franklin
