See it if You want to see an early Suzan-Lori Parks play that is abstract,dreamlike and non-linear exploring black oppression over time
Don't see it if You hate non-linear plays that don't follow a narrative arc and feels like a dream. Very repetitive speech patterns that is hard to follow
See it if You like expressionistic theater and absorbing impressions via symbolic characters, dialect, music, dance, shapes, poetry, you get the idea.
Don't see it if You value plot and coherence over impressions. Not sure how much is accessible to non-black audience members.
See it if You like long epic poems, stark commentary on race in America, good acting, intense and rhythmic dialogue with frequent repitition.
Don't see it if If you like strong plots, linear action, and dialogue.
See it if You enjoy experimental/eclectic theater. An interesting story told through cliches. A very visual story.
Don't see it if You are easily confused or need a linear story. This is not a linear story but a story told through visuals and repetition.
See it if You want to be entranced by a strong ensemble of actors creating an unending syncopation through word & movement. Beautiful poetry.
Don't see it if You are not listening to each word, being drawn into each step / each gesture. The beauty is in the language of the play. Intense & solid.
See it if you are interested in performance art.
Don't see it if you expect to see a coherent play.
See it if Good acting, good design and poetic language is enough for you.
Don't see it if You want a coherent, revealing and non-pretentious point of view. I left the theater perplexed at what the author was trying to say.
See it if you'd like to discuss ideas about race and Black stereotypes.
Don't see it if you'd like a plot-driven drama. This has ideas but little plot.
"Feels like a bad dream. Frequently it’s difficult to make out quite what is going on...Centuries of crime and pain are here distilled into 75 minutes of harrowing yet sublime performance...Under Lileana Blain-Cruz’s precise direction, the 11 performers bring that dark vision to haunting life, marrying exquisitely restrained movement to the rich poetry of Parks’s language...This revival offers a powerful tonic at a time when America’s divisions seem starker than ever."
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"Still, I must confess to finding 'The Death of the Last Black Man' largely impenetrable and frustrating. It is a play that reads better than it stages, that requires close attention to language that is impossible when it washes over you like it does in performance-even in a pitch-perfect production like this one."
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"'Last Black Man' isn't a polemical riff on the headlines...As directed by Blain-Cruz, it has a timeless quality, more like a dance piece or a symphony than a traditional narrative story...But now, the last black man's series of highly-stylized deaths...all also read as a blistering condemnation of society's physical brutality to African-American bodies and a paean to the Black Lives Matter movement. Few works have ever seemed more relevant in our political moment—or as worth seeing."
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"A surreal, poetic meditation on the linked histories of slavery and colonialism…The play riffs on language and remixes racial stereotypes with boldness and grace, creating an experience that is both revelatory and irresistibly watchable…In beautiful choral interludes, the ensemble chants Parks's poetic refrains, which link colonialism to racism and underline the role of language in perpetuating it…These histories are bleak, but watching Parks's play is not."
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"This rarely produced political work has maintained its razor-sharp ferociousness while highlighting Parks' adverse fearlessness as an artist. Delphic, opaque, speculative, mystifying and oracular, the ensemble show is at once fundamentally perplexing and emotionally overpowering…Enigmatic and even stupefying at bouts one thing is certain...Signature's latest revival of ‘The Death of the Last Black Man' is a cathartic fever dream of transgressive art."
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