Not Discussing "The Black Male Thing"

Carl Hancock Rux's No Black Male Show is presented as an anti-performance. The audience is introduced to its three players as a distraught Rux announces that there will be no show tonight despite having learned their lines. The show (obviously) continues, but it provides a sense of unease for the audience, immediately drawing them in.

The No Black Male Show is based on a poem partially written in response to New York's Whitney Museum's Black Male: Representations of Masculinity in Contemporary American Art. Rux revealed that show was but one of many inspirations, along with a desire to tell his story, his responses to his existence as a Black male in America. NBM exists as a peek into Rux's psyche, a circular narrative that manages to branch into seemingly unrelated tangents before collapsing on itself as a reasonably dense, cohesive whole.

The production consists of only four individuals, including the multi-instrumentalist in the rear. For the most part the show consisted of readings from dated sociological essays on black culture as introductions into more personal "anecdotes." The term "anecdote" is used loosely since the poetic, not-entirely-linear delivery was suited more for visceral consumption of the words than as transmission of a "When I was young..." story. Each performer read while standing or sitting, but instead of being bored by the physical stasis, the audience was left with no distractions, giving the words a bit more power.

Seattlest is the first to admit that we usually stick to music performance. It's a world we know, one we understand (a bit more at least). Theater has always presented itself as too big, too lofty, too elitist for our tastes. With its indirectness we can see how The No Black Male Show could be described the same way. However, our personal interest in hearing something about us as a Black male allowed us to put forth the effort to stray beyond our boundaries. We're glad we made the choice, since while our interest initially came from the show's "blackness," by the time we left we realized that show's importance comes from it being a uniquely American performance, not one only for those with a bit more melanin.

Carl Hancock Rux's No Black Male Show continues tonight (2/10) at Broadway Performance Hall. It is part of the Central District Forum's Outside the Hype: Exploring the Representation of Black Males in Society series.