Brandon Victor Dixon (left) as Disher marries into a family that includes Theo Stockman (center) as Ashby and Howard McGillin as a racist reverend, in Black No More.
At the Act One climax of Finian’s Rainbow, which premiered 75 years ago, Billboard Rawkins, a bigoted white Southern senator, turns into a black man by the power of a wish. There’s a blackout, and the actor playing Rawkins hurriedly smears blackface on. Obviously you can’t get away with that anymore, and these days, if anyone dares to do Finian’s (they should), there’s a blackout, and a black Rawkins rushes on to replace the white one. However, in the Act One climax of Black No More, a new musical adapted from George S. Schuyler’s 1931 satirical novel, an opposite racial transition happens.
Lillias White rocks the house, and Ephraim Sykes and Tamika Lawrence love it.
In Scott Elliott’s production, Max Disher (Brandon Victor Dixon), the morally compromised hero, has submitted to the pigmentary experiments of Dr. Junius Crookman (Tariq Trotter, the lyricist, who’s also on the composing team), and has been turned from black to white. No actor switcheroos or stage hocus-pocus here, though: Dixon merely changes his attitude, adjusts his gait and diction, and we accept Max’s transfiguration to a white dude.
Would that all of Black No More proceeded with the same facility. The musical, with a book by John Ridley, and music also by Anthony Tidd, James Poyser, and Daryl Waters, is rich in onstage and offstage talent, powered by a smoking seven-piece orchestra led by Waters, and blessed with a satirical premise that ought to unleash both ample wit and pungent commentary on the nation’s sorry racial history. But it trips over itself a lot.
Lawrence’s Buni tries to talk some sense into Max. Photographs by Monique Carboni.
The basic story is simple. The not-so-good doctor invents a whitening agent for blacks; Max takes it; it works. Soon most of Harlem is bleaching itself, its citizens are departing for the greater opportunities afforded white folks, and its economy is collapsing. Max heads for Atlanta, where, opportunistically, he spouts racist bilge to attach himself to the “church” (read: KKK) of the hateful Rev. Givens (Howard McGillin) and becomes its leader. He’s also affianced to Helen (Jennifer Damiano), the reverend’s daughter, who, in an astounding coincidence, he’d briefly romanced in a Harlem nightclub, despite the racial strictures. They are married, and as Helen’s horrible brother Ashby (Theo Stockman) uncovers truths about his new brother-in-law, Max’s old friend Buni (Tamika Lawrence) ventures south to try and restore him to Harlem and common sense. She’s aided by the Harlem Renaissance man-about-town Agamemnon (Ephraim Sykes), but to no avail, hurtling toward a tragic denouement and a straightforward message delivered by the doomed Max: “Stop f---ing hating. That’s it.”
All this way for that? And why does the production team, which also includes Bill T. Jones (choreography, and it’s slinky, sinuous, and refreshingly expressionistic), commit such fixable errors? Not having read Schuyler’s novel, I don’t know if the premise originated with him, but how is it credible that Dr. Crookman’s invention would sweep Harlem but be utterly unknown outside of it? How can Max so willingly become an agent to everything he’s loathed, and certainly spent plenty of time singing about? Why is Agamemnon, nicely played and sung by Sykes, allotted so much stage time but ultimately has no effect on the narrative? And if you’ve bothered to hire Howard McGillin, shouldn’t you give him a whole song?
Atlanta natives Ashby (Stockman) and his sister Helen (Jennifer Damiano) go to a Harlem nightclub when they’re in New York City.
The performances, not atypically for a Scott Elliott enterprise, are all over the map. Dixon plays Disher ably, but the character’s contradictions are not easy to negotiate, and we’re not sure how much to root for him—he’s initially a sympathetic soul, but surely we don’t want to see him grow fat on a diet of bigotry. Lawrence rather overacts Buni, and while the audience whooped over her frequent vocal ascensions into the stratosphere, good luck understanding a single word while she’s up there. (The sound design, by Nevin Steinberg, is atrocious: another exercise in overamplifying to the point where lyrics are distorted and inaudible.) Lillias White, no less, rocks the house as a hot-growling Harlem chanteuse and beautician. Trotter is a stiff of an actor, but his lyrics are dexterous, when you can hear them. And Stockman so oversells Ashby’s racist rants that you want to throttle him as much for his delivery as for what he’s saying.
It's a hybrid score, poised between period Harlem pastiche—there’s even a 12-bar blues—and present-day rap, and both are competent and sometimes better, but you won’t go out humming. Meantime, you’re given to appreciating the splendid physical production, with Derek McLane sets and eye-filling Qween Jean costumes, and contemplating what an interesting story this is and how more seasoned adapters might have turned it into something really special. But some thudding anachronisms (“politically correct,” in 1931?), and a curious lack of emotion, keep taking us out of the moment. Still, Black No More boasts a hard-working company, an intriguing premise, and a willingness to return to a long-dormant and welcome genre, satirical fantasy, to make its not very surprising points. In these culturally hypersensitive times, those aren’t small virtues.
The New Group’s production of Black No More plays through Feb. 27 at the Pershing Square Signature Center (480 W. 42nd St.). For tickets, COVID guidelines, and performance schedule, visit thenewgroup.org.
