30 PLAYS IN 30 DAYS: Play #8 "for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf" by Ntozake Shange

 

I have decided for the month of September to read 30 plays in 30 days. It is my belief that, if possible, a play should be read in one sitting to get a better inherent sense of the dramatic arc. Each day, I will write a short post here about the play of the day.

Play #8

for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf by Ntozake Shange

Ntozake Shange was only the second black female writer to have a play on Broadway when for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf opened at the Booth Theatre in September of 1976. It would run for two years, be nominated for a Tony for Best Play, win an Outer Critics Circle Award in 1977, win an Obie Award for Distinguished Production for its run at the Public Theater that preceded its Broadway run, and, quite simply, make a mark in American Theatre history. 

Shange refers to the work as a "choreopoem" instead of as a play. The production focuses on her beautiful language, dance, movement, mime and music. Shange said, "A poem should fill you up with something... make you swoon, stop you in your tracks, change your mind or make it up." (My source for this quote is from The Best American Plays series, 1974-1982)

The play, or choreopoem, was first performed by Shange and four of her friends at the Bachannal, a women's bar, outside Berkely, California, and Shange opened with the show on Broadway as the Lady in Orange. The 20 (or up to 22 in later editions) poems are performed by seven women, all named after a color. There are poems that deal with rape, abortion, domestic violence, broken hearts and broken bones--- and it hit me reading it, how it still feels so sadly relevant and modern even now. It is heartbreaking in many ways, though,  Shange's poems ultimately end in strength "i found god in myself & i loved her her/i loved her fiercely," she writes, and the beauty of the moment leaps off the page. 

As much as I love the poems and loved reading the script (and recommend it to people), I would love to see what watching this play live would bring to it, with the music, the dance, the mime, all of it. I have no doubt that it is an unforgettable theatrical experience. And perhaps we will all get a chance again. The Public Theater revived it in 2019 (sadly, Ntozake Shange passed away in 2018 at the age of 70) , and it has been announced that this production will open on Broadway in 2022, directed and choreographed by Camille A. Brown.

In 1982, the play/choreopoem was adapted for the gone and lamented American Playhouse, and in 2010, Tyler Perry adapted the piece into a film starring Janet Jackson and Whoopi Goldberg (it was his first R-rated feature). 

Ntozake Shange wrote many other plays, including an adaptation of Mother Courage that won her another Obie, and that I would love to get my hands on to read. She also published several books of poetry, a bunch of novels, some children's books, and collections of essays, proving herself to be one of the great women of letters in our country's history.