Word: songe
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...solitary figure silhouetted against a reddish-orange dawn marks the beginning of Tug Yourgrau's musical, "The Song of Jacob Zulu." The play, which opened on Broadway in 1993, is an honest attempt to recount the tragedies of a South Africa under the baleful spell of apartheid. Inspired by the murder trial of Jacob Zulu in 1985, the play recounts the violence and pressures of a society fractured by racism...
...does not help that "Song" is almost three hours long; some audience members mistakenly left after the first act, without realizing there was yet an hour and a half to follow...
...musical moves with as much grace and style as can be expected from a small-stage production. With music composed by the South African troupe Ladysmith Black Mambazo, the same group which recorded the album Graceland with Paul Simon, the show alternates between spoken dialogue and a cappella song...
...could only marvel at the irony of one musical number--a trio of 'female' characters singing a pseudofeminist song called "HIStory (History's His Story First)." I had the inescapable impression that the Pudding's male producers, male authors, male composer, male orchestrators and all-male cast were implicitly thumbing their collective nose at all women, even the few who toiled along in the pit orchestra...
Should the song have been remembered for its message, not its messengers? Perhaps, since the singing characters had already been portrayed as shallow bimbos. Before intermission came, the show also managed a salvo aimed at black urban culture. Stunned silence from some and guffaws from others greeted Nick Gordon's caricature of a performance as Sheik Ir-Bouti, recently returned from Long Island. In addition to the odious attributes of the show's writing, the majority of the actors suffered from overplaying that reached beyond the simply funny and into the realm of the suicide-inspiring...