AIN’T NO MO On Broadway - Reviews & News Thread- Page 6

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 12/2/22 at 1:47pm

So weird. That’s one of my alltime favorite shows and I didn’t and don’t see similarities. But that’s what’s so great about art - different people see different things. 

[HogansHero]

Posted: 12/2/22 at 3:35pm

Jordan Catalano said: "So weird. That’s one of my alltime favorite shows and I didn’t and don’t see similarities. But that’s what’s so great about art - different people see different things."

I don't see the similarities either. Colored Museum I get but not ILC. I liked Ain't No Mo a lot but agree it would have been better edited down 15 minutes. I saw it twice and I didn't really get the end part until I saw it again.

[JoeW4]

Posted: 12/2/22 at 4:00pm

Not going to weigh in on Living Color, as I've never seen it. But FWIW, Cooper has openly stated that this play was inspired by The Colored Museum. It was in the program notes when the show played at the Public, and I even saw him discuss it on a panel once.

[BJR]

Posted: 12/2/22 at 4:02pm

Oh I definitely see Colored Museum a predecessor, and the flight attendant scene in that makes it an obvious one. But even structurally and thematically, they're similar. And I was reminded of just how young Wolfe was when he wrote it, another similarity to the impressive Cooper.

Dont see In Living Color similarities beyond sketches and black cultural references. But that's pretty broad indeed.

And shame he missed just key performances. He was there on Thursday, which I imagine was a late or delayed press preview then.

[RichieRSRich]

Posted: 12/2/22 at 4:40pm

Thanks for that info.  Makes complete sense that it was inspired by The Colored Museum.  Which I loved.  I still think about the wig scene and laugh, decades later.  

[ErmengardeStopSniveling]

Posted: 12/2/22 at 5:25pm

The Critics Pick symbol must be delayed (which happens sometimes), that’s a glowing review from Vincentelli. 

[newyorker1410]

Posted: 12/2/22 at 5:58pm

A glowing review?  "Though I loved it at the Public, I haven't found myself thinking about it since."

I liked it at the Public, but had trouble imagining it on Broadway.  I will go see it anyway, but I doubt this will change the trajectory.

[ManOfLaMuncha]

Posted: 12/2/22 at 9:40pm

JoeW4 said: "Not going to weigh in on Living Color, as I've never seen it. But FWIW, Cooper has openly stated that this play was inspired by The Colored Museum. It was in the program notes when the show played at the Public, and I even saw him discuss it on a panel once."

You can find funny skits and episodes of In Living Color on youtube.  Several well known actors/comedians started out there, as well as J-Lo as a "fly girl" dancer.

[BoringBoredBoard40]

Posted: 12/2/22 at 11:21pm

ErmengardeStopSniveling said: "The Critics Pick symbol must be delayed (which happens sometimes), that’s a glowing review from Vincentelli."

Certainly is not a critics pick....

[Robbie2]

Posted: 12/3/22 at 1:12pm

bdn223 said: "Having seen this a couple nights back I really hope that press send black and POC reviewers to this because I honestly feel the experience will be completely different for black and white audiences.

As a white man, this wasn't for me, but I could see several black audience members howling with laughter while I would only have the occasional chuckle. From a critical perspective though, its hard for me to find fault in the the material itself, when I can see that it clearly was hitting the notes for its intended audience. It rides the fine line between sketch comedy and performance piece, which could use a slight bit of tightening, but each sketch does accomplish the double edged sword of comedy and commentary. My only real technical gripe with the piece is that you feel the 1 hour and 50 minutes and it could use an intermission. Thematically it could of been worked into one of the recurring Peaches "sketches" where she would announce that the plane is having technical difficulties and we need to delay the boarding process for 15 minutes. Especially as the show does not have a true narrative structure there is no climax/progression within the vignettes, it just felt its runtime.

The performances were all fantastic though, and throughout it I kept being amazed by how each performer disappeared into the characters in each vignette especially Lucas-Perry. Her performances kept reminding me of Uzo Aduba in Orange is the New Black being simultaneously heartbreaking and hilarious.

Once again, while I can appreciate the piece, it just was not for me. It's very similar toA Strange Loop,in that while A Strange Loopisunabashedly proud about being written and intended for big, black, and gay audiences,Ain't No Mois clearly written for black audiences. I am happy producers are taking the risk and trying to expand the Broadway audience with pieces like this and I hope it works out in the long run."

That's the problem the audience for these shows are not going and supporting it! We have no desire to see this and ASL was not for us. Actually we... Hated It! 

[newyorker1410]

Posted: 12/3/22 at 6:53pm

I'm an older straight white male.  I don't accept that I am not the intended audience.  I have enjoyed and appreciated countless queer and BIPOC theater productions, films, and other arts and media.

IMO the problem with both ANM (which I have only seen at the Public) and ASL is that they were good but not great. Sadly, I feel I can say that about all the new shows I have seen this year including Almost Famous, and A Beautiful Noise, for which I am the target audience.

For reference, relatively recent shows I have enjoyed, at least enough to recommend to other people, include Hamilton, Six, and The Prom.

In their defense, both ANM and ASL were written by very young playwrights, and showed a lot of promise, unfortunately, what the writers seemed to feel was radical and ground breaking, to me seemed gimmicky and trite.  

Again, I am aware I am not experiencing this in the same way a gay person or black person might, however I felt like I understood the points, but had seen them expressed in more profound and entertaining ways.

So I salute all those involved, I felt both shows were created with passion and integrity and had many excellent qualities.  I am glad they made it to Broadway.   I just feel that the reasons these shows  are struggling at the box office is less 'that white people are close minded,' and more that these shows, (along with most of the new shows this year) needed to be better in order to overcome the economic, health and cultural headwinds. 

 

 

 

[perfectlymarvelous]

Posted: 12/3/22 at 7:42pm

Ain't No Mo' and A Strange Loop really don't have anything in common other than being written by gay Black men. I also wouldn't call Michael R. Jackson "very young," he's 41 and was developing A Strange Loop for over a decade. It's also a Pulitzer winner and received glowing reviews at Playwrights Horizons, Woolly Mammoth in DC, and on Broadway. And for what it's worth, I took my mom who's a straight white woman in her 60s to see A Strange Loop and she absolutely loved it and found it to be emotionally resonant. 

I enjoyed Ain't No Mo' quite a bit, but there's really no reason to compare it to A Strange Loop in any way. 

[uncageg]

Posted: 12/3/22 at 11:16pm

I am an older black gay male. 

I found both "A Strange Loop" and "Ain't No Mo'" to be brilliant pieces of work. And yes, coming from a black perspective, they do have things in common. The beauty of the two pieces is that a lot of people can take different things away from one, ASL,  as it isn't just about being black and the other, ANM, is much more direct. But both represent different segments of the black community and both throw up a mirror to the black community as well as non black communities. 

[HogansHero]

Posted: 12/3/22 at 11:37pm

I have no problem with anyone hating any show. I have hated many. And I have no problem with anyone concluding that a particular show is "not for them" whether they have seen it or not. There are a ton of shows that are not for me. But I have a really big problem with anyone announcing that any show (and especially these two) are not for others or that they were written for a different race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other attribute. Especially with regard to these two shows, the claim is manifestly as wrong as it could possibly be. I think if we try to wrestle with our own affections we have a pretty full plate without trying to impose anything on anyone else. 

[Jonathan Cohen]

Posted: 12/4/22 at 11:43am

newyorker1410 said: "IMO the problem with both ANM (which I have only seen at the Public) and ASL is that they were good but not great. Sadly, I feel I can say that about all the new shows I have seen this year including Almost Famous, and A Beautiful Noise, for which I am the target audience.

For reference, relatively recent shows I have enjoyed, at least enough to recommend to other people, include Hamilton, Six, and The Prom.

In their defense, both ANM and ASL were written by very young playwrights, and showed a lot of promise, unfortunately, what the writers seemed to feel was radical and ground breaking, to me seemed gimmicky and trite.

Again, I am aware I am not experiencing this in the same way a gay person or black person might, however I felt like I understood the points, but had seen them expressed in more profound and entertaining ways.

So I salute all those involved, I felt both shows were created with passion and integrity and had many excellent qualities. I am glad they made it to Broadway. I just feel that the reasons these shows are struggling at the box office is less 'that white people are close minded,' and more that these shows, (along with most of the new shows this year) needed to be better in order to overcome the economic, health and cultural headwinds.

A Strange Loop won the Pulitzer Prize and the Tony for Best Musical, the first musical to accomplish that since Hamilton. If you thought it was trite and gimmicky, your opinion is still valid. However in terms of general critical perception, A Strange Loop is one of the most acclaimed new musicals of the last 25 years. I don't think the quality of the writing was really what stopped it from being more successful. 

But also, I think it has been commercially successful. If you look at the new musical productions that opened around the same time, most of them have closed. Paradise Square crashed and burned almost immediately, and I'm pretty sure a lot of people who worked on it, are still waiting to be paid. Doubtfire was a quick exit. Girl From The North Country is gone. Mr. Saturday Night closed because Billy Crystal had to go film something but also it wasn't selling especially well.  

Funny Girl is thriving but only after Lea Michelle replacing Beanie Feldstein, and months of it underperforming. 

A Strange Loop is going to have outlasted all of those shows other than Funny Girl. Maybe it's not a Phantom of the Opera or Hamilton sized hit, but I think ASL is what having a hit looks like. 

In terms of if Ain't No Mo needing to be better written, personally I think it needed edited more tightly, but also Jordan E. Cooper wasn't writing it for me. He's explicitly said he wrote it unconcerned with how it was received by white audiences. By his metric for success, it matters how queer and straight Black audiences receive the play.  

 

 






"

 

[quizking101]

Posted: 12/4/22 at 12:14pm

I went again for the yesterday matinee since Jordan E. Cooper was back. I was just as much enthralled as I was last week. If you get a lottery ticket in the front row, you are in for a TREAT! I knew what was coming and I still was caught off guard.

At this moment in time, I would go insofar as to put my chips on Crystal Lucas-Perry being nominated and possibly winning a Tony.

I will say that I did prefer Cooper’s understudy (Nik Alexander) just a slightly bit more, but maybe it was because I felt a little more venom in their Peaches’ line delivery, while Cooper’s Peaches feels a bit more lived in and weary of the foolishness. But you’re getting a great show either way.

Also…Marchant Davis…that man…*fans self*

[buffalospeedway]

Posted: 12/5/22 at 3:08am

Robbie2 said: "bdn223 said: "Having seen this a couple nights back I really hope that press send black and POC reviewers to this because I honestly feel the experience will be completely different for black and white audiences.

As a white man, this wasn't for me, but I could see several black audience members howling with laughter while I would only have the occasional chuckle. From a critical perspective though, its hard for me to find fault in the the material itself, when I can see that it clearly was hitting the notes for its intended audience. It rides the fine line between sketch comedy and performance piece, which could use a slight bit of tightening, but each sketch does accomplish the double edged sword of comedy and commentary. My only real technical gripe with the piece is that you feel the 1 hour and 50 minutes and it could use an intermission. Thematically it could of been worked into one of the recurring Peaches "sketches" where she would announce that the plane is having technical difficulties and we need to delay the boarding process for 15 minutes. Especially as the show does not have a true narrative structure there is no climax/progression within the vignettes, it just felt its runtime.

The performances were all fantastic though, and throughout it I kept being amazed by how each performer disappeared into the characters in each vignette especially Lucas-Perry. Her performances kept reminding me of Uzo Aduba in Orange is the New Black being simultaneously heartbreaking and hilarious.

Once again, while I can appreciate the piece, it just was not for me. It's very similar toA Strange Loop,in that while A Strange Loopisunabashedly proud about being written and intended for big, black, and gay audiences,Ain't No Mois clearly written for black audiences. I am happy producers are taking the risk and trying to expand the Broadway audience with pieces like this and I hope it works out in the long run."

That's the problem the audience for these shows are not going and supporting it! We have no desire to see this and ASL was not for us. Actually we... Hated It!"

Black people are definitely supporting ASL and ANM. ASL, in particular, has had several Black Theater Nights, including one hosted by Trevor Noah. The issue is older white audience members who prefer to spend their play-going dollars on conventional family dramas written by established playwrights (and this is not a criticism of The Piano Lesson or Leopoldstadt, which I both enjoyed).

In terms of similarities, both ASL and ANM are heavily indebted to the Colored Museum and both have a central Black queer character surrounded by an ensemble playing multiple roles. But I also think they are being lumped together because they are the "edgy" Black shows this season. 

That being said, I wasn't thrilled with ANM. For a show that boasts about its transgressiveness, I found the politics of the second scene in particular to be downright conservative!

[inception]

Posted: 12/5/22 at 5:24am

Jonathan Cohen said: "
A Strange Loop is going to have outlasted all of those shows other than Funny Girl. Maybe it's not a Phantom of the Opera or Hamilton sized hit, but I think ASL is what having a hit looks like.
 

Technically speaking, having a hit means that a show recoups & turns a profit, & NOT that it loses money for all its celebrity investors.
 

[Jonathan Cohen]

Posted: 12/5/22 at 10:36am

inception said: "Jonathan Cohen said: "
A Strange Loop is going to have outlasted all of those shows other than Funny Girl. Maybe it's not a Phantom of the Opera or Hamilton sized hit, but I think ASL is what having a hit looks like.


Technically speaking, having a hit means that a show recoups & turns a profit, & NOT that it loses money for all its celebrity investors.
"

I certainly understand what you're saying but at the same time that's an accounting definition and sometimes accounting doesn't reflect reality. For example, I was just reading how actors from Return of the Jedi periodically get letters saying unfortunately they can't get residuals because the 9th highest grossing film of the 1980s still hasn't turned a profit. 

Does anybody really believe that Return of the Jedi lost money? 

I know that only 20% of Broadway shows break even and turn a profit. If that was the only metric of success for investors, there are certainly safer ways to try and make money. 

However, for celebrity investors (and I don't who is lending just their name as opposed to their checkbook to productions), success can also mean having your name attached to a show that cleans up at the Tonys. Or the satisfaction of a work you believe in getting seen by a wider audience. 

There's also additional income sources. For example, I'm assuming The Prom lost money on Broadway but that someone made a profit selling the film version to Netflix.  

 

 

[VintageSnarker]

Posted: 12/5/22 at 8:45pm

I agree that the play doesn't quite feel like a unified whole but the individual scenes are strong enough to make up for that and Peaches was a dynamic and charismatic enough throughline that I wasn't disappointed or confused by the ending. Almost 2 hours with no intermission was hard on my body but otherwise, I didn't really mind the pacing beyond the first scene (which I do agree suffers from lack of audience participation. Prodding the audience to respond doesn't quite have the same affect.) Great performances all around. I appreciated Cooper's facility with references. It's a rare play that doesn't seem abstracted from history and pop culture and the present moment. I'd like to read the script at some point as I could recall the gist of each scene but not all the arguments being made. There was just so much going on, but it didn't feel shallow or like most of the scenes couldn't hold up on their own. Perhaps part of the issue is that people are expecting "groundbreaking" when this is just very solid. 

Having seen both this and 1776, I think the right actresses are currently in the right roles. 

[EDSOSLO858]

Posted: 12/8/22 at 10:41pm

DTLI Consensus: Ain’t no doubt this is a Broadway smash. 

10 positive (including the NYT).

https://didtheylikeit.com/shows/aint-no-mo/

[BwayLover5]

Posted: 12/9/22 at 6:18pm

Just received an email saying my 12/30 performance was canceled and the show is closing 12/18.  Had really wanted to see this.

"Unfortunately, Ain't No Mo' has announced it will close on Sunday, December 18, 2022. Your performance has been canceled.

Ain't No Mo'
12/30/2022 2:00:00 PM

We understand this is disappointing, but we hope you’ll take the opportunity to see this fantastic show on another date. Here are your options:"

[JSquared2]

Posted: 12/9/22 at 7:02pm

EDSOSLO858 said: "DTLI Consensus:Ain’t no doubt this is a Broadway smash.

10 positive (including the NYT).

https://didtheylikeit.com/shows/aint-no-mo/"

 

This did not age well.

 

[LuPita2]

Posted: 12/9/22 at 8:20pm

It aged just fine, critics can find a work of art brilliant and audiences still don't always connect to it.