Michael R Jackson’s A Strange Loop was a sensation on Broadway last year, winning the Pulitzer Prize along with two Tony Awards. Now, finally, it has arrived in London.
Counting Alan Cumming and Jennifer Hudson among its producers, it is an affectionate skewering of the clichés of American racial and sexual politics.
Jackson’s protagonist, Usher, doesn’t know whether he’s looking for a black partner who’ll respect him in the morning or a white race-fetishist who’ll degrade him after dark. Or as he sings proudly, “the second-wave feminist in me is at war with the d**k-sucking black gay man”.
If that’s already too explicit for you, don’t book a ticket. Everyone else should take delight in this dazzling transfer.
Usher hates his day job working as an usher on The Lion King, so he writes a musical about someone like him: a young gay black writer who is writing a musical about a young gay black writer – hence the “strange loop” of the title.
The wittiness of Jackson’s lyrics gives us a constant patter of wordplay, chock-full of the cultural references points of black gay America – everyone from Audré Lorde to Scott Rudin gets a shout out. But if those names mean nothing to you, don’t worry. Let it wash over you and get carried along by the tide of this show’s true emotional direction: the story of a man torn between the disappointment of his homophobic, church going parents, and the pressures of a gay dating scene that demands he be both conventionally shaggable and politically correct at all times. He is neither.
Jackson’s music is as self-referential and clever as his lyrics – there are nods to gospel worship, Hamilton and Liz Phair, whose 1993 song “Strange Loop” is Jackson’s starting point. As Usher, American Kyle Ramar Freeman steps up superbly after serving as the role’s understudy on Broadway. The variety of musical styles here is a challenge for any performer: Freeman has the vocal range to deliver and the emotional honesty to keep our focus on Usher’s vulnerability, underneath the virtuoso display.
His intrusive thoughts, irritable parents and exploitative lovers are embodied by a chorus of six British performers. There’s no weak link, but Eddie Elliot stands out, as does Nathan Armarkwei-Laryea, fresh from another sparky performance in the Almeida’s otherwise disappointing Women, Beware The Devil. Jen Schriever’s lighting adds precision and pizzazz.
A Strange Loop is the latest import from New York’s current bubble of black gay theatre, following plays by Jeremy O Harris and Robert O’Hara. Jackson’s work is more self-aware and less pompous than that of both those writers: joyous, clever and alive. Don’t miss it.
