gay actors | Keh Haton Cobb

What’s like for a female actor to be directed by a man? Or a gay actor to be directed by a straight? Keh Haton Cobb exam his s-long reer as an Ain-Amerin actor beg directed by whe men. The rult is his fiery new meltdown of a play, “Amerin Moor,” which opened Sunday at the Cherry Lane Theatre and prented by the Red Bull plays himself, or someone simply creded as “an actor,” and Josh Tyson plays “a director,” who speaks om the dience and don’t appear on stage until the curta ll. “Amerin Moor” simulat an dn for the tle role Shakpeare’s “Othello,” and thgs don’t go well between this particular actor and director. Actually, most of “Amerin Moor” is not what tak place an dn but rather the actor’s head after he’s given directorial suggtns on how to perform the role qutn. Sce Cobb has clearly been here before, many tim, a racially tged remark om the director sends him off to long hallucatory analys of whe patriarchy, black abeyance, the Method, tnted rehearsal schl, the mid-Atlantic accent and directors who thk they n read the Bard’s md a few centuri after the fact. Cobb offers up a scrambled realy, and his performance is enhanced by Wilson Ch’s set, Alan C. Edwards lightg, Christian Frerickson’s sound sign, and Kim Weild’s always fluid Read: 'Betrayal' Broadway Review: Tom Hiddlton Giv a Master Class MimalismThis surreal tour of an actor’s md begs even before we hear Tyson’s voice. Cobb kicks off “Amerin Moor” by havg one of those awful arguments we all have wh an imagary foe to relive the most meang moments life. Cobb livers snippets of dialogue om dream rol that the powers that be never want him to perform, like Queen Tania “A Midsummer’s Night Dream,” not to mentn Hamlet and Richard II, but that ubiquo director/drama teacher his head wants him to dn stead for Aaron the Moor “T Andronic.”The few scen where Cobb and Tyson actually speak to each other are very “me kg, you puppet” and the “Amerin Moor” uld e more of them. Tyson’s director is entled but also urteo, even-tempered, and he giv Cobb the time, if not the figurative space, to dn. He’s no Otto Premger, although his suggtn to terpret Othello as an obssed Lisa Nowak, the diaper-wearg astront (Google her, if you mt), is so off-the-wall that you know Cobb didn’t dream up such absurd episo. He mt have experienced first one pot, Cobb’s actor intifi himself as beg fifty-two years old. He’s fally the right age to play Othello, after years of beg told that one day he’ll make a great Othello, as if that’s the only role he’s been wag to play after markg time wh his Walter Lee Younger, Troy Maxson, or some abomatn wrten by Tyler Perry. Cobb’s middle-aged actor isn’t gog down whout a fight, and his stretch shirt and tight khakis (stume sign by De Aye) let know he’s willg to play up a black stereotype, if that’s what Read: 'Make Believe' Theater Review: Why Childhood Isn't for SissiRegardls of his talent and buff physique, Cobb remas a middle-aged actor, and the current explosn of plays by black wrers, most of whom are a or two younger, appears to have passed him by. “Amerin Moor” don’t mentn this new body of plays, but ageism is the other brick the roadblock surroundg New York Cy, this year alone has seen the lol or world premier of Aziza Barn’s “BLKS,” Jordan E. Cooper’s “A’t No Mo’,” Lydia R. Diamond’s “Toni Stone,” Jackie Sibbli Dry’s “Marys Seale,” Jeremy O. Harris’s “Daddy,” Michael R. Jackson’s “A Strange Loop,” Lynn Nottage’s “The Secret Life of Be,” Domique Morisse’s “A’t Too Proud,” Suzan-Lori Parks’s “Whe Noise,” Tori Sampson’s “If Pretty Hurts Ugly Mt be a Muhf-a,” and Loy A. Webb’s “The Light.” Among the new dramas and books for mils by Ain-Amerin wrers, there are at most three male rol (and supportg rol, at that) for an actor who’s pl 50. “Amerin Moor” is the first, so far this year, to give an actor like Cobb his due. It says much that he had to wre origal story ‘Amerin Moor’ Theater Review: An Actor Cononts Othello – and a Frght History Wh Whe Directors At TheWrap