Wolfe says he wrote The Colored Museum in order to “undefine myself in relation to all of those labels,” labels which the performers take on. These and other voices reach out from Wolfe’s 11 exhibits or sketches of African-American stereotypes put on display for public consumption, back-to-back, black to black. No-no! The kink of my head is like the kink of your heart and neither is about to be hot-pressed into surrender.” The cast soars in one of Wolfe’s more complete sketches, “The Last Mama on the Couch Play,” and makes it sing and zing, roasts and all. Hell no! It’s a wake.” An Afro wig named Janine (LaNeshe Miller-White): “When you wearin’ me, you lettin’ him know he ain’t gonna get no sweet-talkin’ comb through your love without some serious resistance. But don’t be fooled by the banners or balloons ‘cause, child, this ain’t no party goin’ on. Miss Roj (played dynamically by Derek Deleqúa) flaunting pink cat-eye glasses and white go-go boots, on working a bar called “The Bottomless Pit”: “Yeah, snap your fingers and dance with Miss Roj. The voices are multiple (as are the live responses), ranging from the schizophrenic to the outright vivacious. The caricatures in The Colored Museum answer. This play-ne has arrived to chart a different course: how do African-Americans live with and confront their own legacy, pain and joy, inflicted stereotypes and erasure, reflections and refractions? Meanwhile, I stuff my unorganized baggage labeled ‘fragile’ in the overhead compartment (stowed, not gone) and hope it doesn’t fall out and hit someone in the head, or inflate and take up the whole goddamn plane. The flight to avoid confronting a white legacy of enforcing and upholding structural racism, trauma, and harm is boarding from gate B 11, Terminal C and has been sold out for 400 years. Mine is made from cotton and an invention called whiteness, through which I see, hear, and breathe. In this past-present-potential-future time, passengers carry different baggage. And now we’re passing over the Great Depression, which means everybody gets to live the way you’ve been living.” This is the clip at which The Colored Museum moves across pain. And on your left, the Civil War, which means you will vote Republican until F.D.R. “On your right you will see the American Revolution, which will give the U.S. She points at the “fasten your shackles” sign, pulls heavy prop shackles from under a museum plaque where they are described, and requests no drumming and no rebelling. Nastassja Baset plays Miss Pat, a perky flight attendant, who flashes us a gleaming service smile. We stand, waiting, in AAMP’s actual exhibit hall displaying the timeline entitled “Audacious Freedom: African-Americans in Philadelphia 1776-1876,” when “Git On Board,” the first exhibit of Wolfe’s fictional Colored Museum cuts through the space.
THE COLORED MUSEUM SCRIPT PROFESSIONAL
Founded by Walter DeShields, LaNeshe Miller-White and Carlo Campbell in 2013, the company aims “to provide the people of West Philadelphia and the African American community at large the opportunity to see professional quality theater in their own neighborhood for no cost.” Wolfe’s The Colored Museum, first produced in 1986, and now co-produced by Theatre in the X in partnership with the African American Museum in Philadelphia (AAMP) as part of Theatre Philadelphia’s Theatre Week in 2019.īy staging The Colored Museum in the African American Museum, Theatre in the X departs from its geographical home, Malcolm X Park in West Philadelphia, but otherwise maintains the integrity of its mission. The pass doubles as my program for George C.
I’ve been handed a boarding pass, Cabin A, operated by Celebrity Slaveship, headed from the Gold Coast to Bahia, Port-au-Prince, and Havana, with a final stop in Savannah. Wolfe, from a New York Times article by Jeremy Gerard, Nov.
Four walls, a couch and a mama?' I can't exist within those old definitions.” Let us know what you think in the comments! Beginning May 2018, tD writers have been lending their varied backgrounds, interests, and approaches to criticism to professional works of theater in Philadelphia.
In a quest to reach new audiences for performing arts in Philadelphia, Theatre Philadelphia and thINKingDANCE are joining forces and exploring how dance writing and discourse can provide new perspectives on theater. In A Time Warp Called Reality, Theatre in the X Travels to the Museum by Jenna Horton
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