A Strange Loop Review: Black, big, gay wrer gets navel-gazy and tuneful – New York Theater

Contents:

• THE 10 BT GAY MILS OF ALL TIME
• A STRANGE LOOP REVIEW: BLACK, BIG, GAY WRER GETS NAVEL-GAZY AND TUNEFUL
• NEW WAVE OF BLACK, GAY NARRATIV TAKG BIGGER ROLE ON NYC THEATER SCENE
• LIL NAS X MAK HISTORY AS FIRST OPENLY GAY BLACK ARTIST TO W AT CMA AWARDS

THE 10 BT GAY MILS OF ALL TIME

Jackson’s Pulzer Prize-wng meta-mil, is g to Broadway this show’s producers announced on Monday that the mil would n at the Lycm Theater; they did not announce specific dat, but is planng to open before the eligibily adle for this season’s Tony Awards, which is expected to be late show is a self-referential mil edy about a Black gay mil theater wrer tryg to wre a mil about a Black gay mil theater wrer.

What’s more, the show is often graphic and eply, pafully timate: there are the barbed teractns wh Usher’s parents, who attempt to dissua him out of his long-tablished “homosexsh’aly, ” and a sexual enunter durg which Usher’s partner means him g racist language and roleplay. It offers a bg mentary of Tyler Perry’s works, which have been cricized for stereotypil pictns of Black women and gay Black characters (Perry is namechecked throughout the productn). Though they’re all a part of Usher, they often feel at war wh him – they partake paful scen which his parents e homophobic slurs or fictnal maniftatns of Usher’s ep secury.

And though crics are quick to ll the show “avant gar” bee of s ncept, Brackett said, often looks and sounds like a tradnal mil (m the lyrics about gay sex). ” In , he reunts sneakg cupk the high school gym and watchg “The Young and the Rtls, ” the “one lone Black gay boy [he] knew who chose to turn his back on the Lord. “It was really important to that, obvly, this show is about a young, gay, overweight Black man, ” he said.

A STRANGE LOOP REVIEW: BLACK, BIG, GAY WRER GETS NAVEL-GAZY AND TUNEFUL

Jackson, and ’s an tofictnal meta-mil about a Black gay man wrg a mil about a Black gay man wrg a mil about a Black—you get the ia. The other is a pafully timate portra of the artist as fat and queer and “too Black” for the “whe gaytriarchy, ” whose parents will never accept his sexualy.

By the end of MJ, we don’t know if Michael’s gay, asexual, or crimally msed up, but his mic transports across generatns. Usher fled a fay and muny Detro that probably would have driven him to unsafe sex or suici (one song quietly memorializ “Black gay boys who chose to go on back to the Lord”). By the end, the gospel gig has merged to Usher’s shame at his homophobic, Popey-chicken-eatg, drama-havg fay back home, who sg along to a terrifyg gospel number about how “AIDS is God’s punishment.

NEW WAVE OF BLACK, GAY NARRATIV TAKG BIGGER ROLE ON NYC THEATER SCENE

A Strange Loop is profanely funny and urageoly raw, but on a send viewg (I reviewed s world premiere Off Broadway 2019), ’s also clstrophobilly fixated on the wounds of youth, a howl of rage at gay lookism, whe gatekeepers, and toxic Christiany.

From gay rights precsors of the natn’s homophile movement to the Stonewall Rt and separate follow-up LGBTQ+ liberatn efforts, Black alli mobilized substantial change. Today, as “gay-iendly” rabow-washg or mercial slogans are prsed onto brand ems for prof, we n rpect past LGBTQ+ activists’ ntributns. Beyond h-makg, their talent brgs awarens to LGBTQ+ ncerns and helps strip dtry shareholrs’ of archaic homophobic bias.

LIL NAS X MAK HISTORY AS FIRST OPENLY GAY BLACK ARTIST TO W AT CMA AWARDS

It Was Good Until It Wasn’t, her 2020 sophomore LP, beme her hight mastream cred to date bi the entreprenr’s TSNMI imprt.

The artist is creded for popularizg the clive mil movement, and the Queen Diva herself acknowledg beg gay and genr fluid.