By: Alex Heying

Alex Heying — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 02:10:23 +0000

The minstrel show frame story elevates the Scottsboro Boys from musical to masterpiece. The minstrel show format neither reduces the main narrative to 'baffoonery' nor acts as a manifestation of 'white guilt.' Rather, it illuminates a hard-to-swallow history lesson. The creative team behind this musical understands that American theater did not in fact begin with Busby Berkeley's showgirls, but instead has its roots in black-face minstrel shows, a history that the primarily-white theater audiences often like to forget. The writers and director also understand the incongruous perspectives of the subjects of history and those who tell their stories (perhaps the Interlocutor personifies their own creative roles in the production). The Scottsboro Boys, therefore, not only illuminates an important aspect of American entertainment history, but also forces the audience to realize, as they enjoy the faux minstrel show before them, that they too are complicit in the racial injustices to which they bear witness.
Of course it's no enormous shock that racist sentiments still pervade showbiz in the US, but Scottsboro Boys stands as one of the few mainstream works to acknowledge and critique this aspect of contemporary theater. Of course not everyone in the audience gets it, of course people laugh inappropriately throughout the show, and of course some react negatively when confronted with actors in blackface, but no audience member is allowed to escape the ambiguous discomfort that underscores the standing ovations. If the show pointed a definable accusatory finger – if its goal was simply to place blame – the show would merely be social propaganda. Instead, the show tells a history, retells another forgotten history, and holds up an unavoidable mirror. It makes people think, makes them reevaluate, makes them second guess their role as theater spectator.
Scottsboro Boys' complexity and boldness in both form and content remain vastly overlooked and underrated. At least this production in San Francisco allowed it a little more life after its far-too-short run in New York. Maybe someday it will be appreciated as the genius work that it is.

Comments on: ‘The Scottsboro Boys,’ a review

By: Alex Heying