I saw this show last Thursday and I did actually enjoy it. The soap opera format was very unique, and it was a great callback to the telenovelas that I had watched when I was younger. I believe the show was 3 hours long when I saw it as well, but they were an enjoyable 3 hours at least.
I think it tries to tackle a lot of issues that will be difficult for the general theatre audience to digest, hence why people left during intermission. It’s also quite sexual at times as well, which didn’t help its case.
I’m going to discuss a few plot spoilers from the mid/end of the efirst act onward, just to provide a fuller review.
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A lot of the things I enjoyed fell in the second act, but I particularly loved watching Keesha and her mothers dynamic change drastically as Keesha changed and discovered herself even further. When Keesha starts assimilating herself to become more like the Allwhite folks, her mother remains true to herself and still is able to be “promoted” in the show from lunch lady to nurse and eventually lawyer. This contrasts beautifully with Keesha whose blonde streaks slowly show her adopting Allwhite traits that are less desirable as a way to become like them and become promoted, such as her anorexia and allowing abuse. As a POC audience member, it really resonated to see myself represented on stage with two seperate journeys of how gaining white acceptance can be. Even after the mother is promoted in Allwhite, she still has flaws the the daughter educates and works with her on, such as in the scene where Keesha comes out to her mother, her mother will not accept her. I also think the monologue helps explain some of these complexities in the show to audience members who may not understand conflicts that arise in black society, such as the rampant homophobia and lack of support for even their own people. A Strange Loop also addresses this (In my opinion, in a better and more concise way), however it is not often that lesbian stories are brought to the forefront in comparison to gay male stories.
I also think the murder plotline as a metaphor for police violence would be great if it didn’t cause so many characters to come back to life as ghosts on stage (it felt too supernatural and out of place imo) and if the creator didn’t take credit for the deaths. One of EWM’s characters as the killer would make more sense, considering how they’re also clear representations of various issues that boyfriends in society can have.
Overall, I believe it was a solid beginning for a great show. it needs to be tightened up, but it’s a great piece of art. Unfortunately though, it’ll have a similar problem to “Ain’t no mo.” It’s filling such a specific audience niche, it’s not something easy to consume for tourists (besides from being a musical), and for this show specifically the sexual nature will not be super digestable for elderly audiences (SPOILERS: there’s a scene of somebody being tied to a bed almost, a man asking to be pegged, a song about lesbian sex, and the final chariot scene is arguably sexual too).
I would love to see this as a little limited run from April to July 2024 in a smaller theatre like the Hayes or Lyceum, so it’s in just before the Tony deadline and so there is time to work on this show once more in the Tristate Area to gain an audience and fix some of the things that still need some tuning, but iin the end, it will likely have a fate somewhere between Ain’t No Mo and A Strange Loop: General audiences won’t 100% get it, but people will understand it’s an art piece and view with discretion.
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