Drama is, by its very nature, one of the few opportunities most of us will ever get to experience life walking in someone else’s shoes, for however short a time.
It’s more than a little surprising to me therefore to discover just how much the shoes worn by Usher, (Kyle Ramar Freeman) in Michael R Jackson’s A Strange Loop which has just opened for a limited run at The Barbican, are my shoes.
We’re both fat gay writers trying to write musicals. We both grew up with a debilitating amount of homophobia in our home lives. And we both sought respite from the stultifying confines of our respective domiciles in the magic, comfort, and relative safety of the theatre.
In Usher’s case the theatre in question is The Minskoff where he’s working in the foyer as Front of House staff for The Lion King, literally as an usher.
Oh, and in Usher’s case, he’s also black.
Back at home in his apartment in New York, having moved out from his parents, he is assailed by his ‘extremely obnoxious thoughts’, the other six members of the cast who also double as the rest of the characters in the piece, as each brings their own dollop of self-affirmation or, more likely, self loathing. One is there to tell him just how talentless he is, another to tell him how worthless, another to hammer home how unloved, and unlovable.
Though that isn’t to say that A Strange Loop is some depressing snooze-fest, as nothing could be further from the truth.
From the opening seconds, as far almost as the very end of its one hour forty minute playing time, it’s a riotous joy. A circumstance brought about in no small part by a fantastic book which is, to put it mildly, rude and crude. Refreshingly rude and crude. It revels in its discussion of gay sexual practises that must have had some of the matrons in The Barbican’s audience clutching their pearls and wondering what on earth those on stage were talking about.
Indeed, if the book has a failing it isn’t so much the crudeness (the use of ‘The N- word’ is thrown around more hap-hazardly than in a mid-period Eddie Murphy stand-up routine) but in its reliance on cultural references that simply don’t travel. For example, much is made of the oeuvre generated by Tyler Perry, someone whose name had not hitherto crossed my radar, but there were plenty of others.
Although the overarching premise of the show is that the writer – Usher – is trying to write a show about a gay black man writing a show about a gay black man writing a show about a gay black man – ‘Big black and queer ass American Broadway’ (etc), in truth that’s a bit of a red herring, and the most interesting parts of the show are those that deal with his own self-loathing (is it better to accept the fact that you’re unlovable, and concentrate on other things, or go out after sex knowing that you’ll face rejection?), and his relationship with his family who all seem rather broadly drawn and reference just about every clichéd trope going. Let’s just say that in Usher’s eyes Larkin was right: ‘They f*ck you up, your mum and dad’.
Overall a very funny diversion.
But did I learn anything I didn’t know before I entered the theatre? No.
Was I entertained? Yes, hugely.
Was I moved? I have to admit, not really.
Still, in spite of this I’ve bought a ticket and will be seeing the show again in August. Perhaps next time