Noise/Funk: Fo' real Black theatre on 'Da great White way - play 'Bring in 'Da Noise, Bring in 'Da Funk' on Broadway

African American Review, Winter, 1997 by Elmo Terry-Morgan

The metaphorical expression of this human phenomenon is reinforced in "The Pan Handlers." In this percussive performance, Jared & Ray put on a dazzling display of artistic brilliance, a symbolic salute to the ingenuity of Black folks. With their bodies strategically covered in pots, pans, and molded metal (and, behind them, racks of the same "found objects"), they pound out 'Da Beat with jazz precision--improvisation bouncing off of, but never forgetting, the intelligence of the musical thesis. If one analyzes this scene at the level of storyline, reams of misinformation will be internalized. Watching the play, I wondered how many in the audience thought this display was a little-known form of Black music making per se. At the level of metaphor, it is evident that the artistic expression is an innovative way to salute the heritage of Black folks' making "Som'thin' from Nuthin'." Remember, don't leave home without your Metaphor Card!

The section entitled "Urbanization" opens with a chilling dramatization of the rampant lynching of Black folks in America during the turn of the century and the early years of the 1900s. "The Lynching Blues," to me, is the most poignant scene in the play. The dancer, Baakari Wilder, is sheer, raw emotion, energy, and essence of dehumanization as he executes his lynched man's dance. The image of a snapped neck and dangling body, isolated in eerie light and shadow, is the most terrifying image I have ever seen on the stage. This is where the cultural excavation digs deep--way deep. The pain which is packed into 'Da Beat is gathering more memory and ugliness. And, in direct binary opposition, the art which comes out of these abused people becomes more forceful, urgent, and beautiful. They sang and tapped their blues on Mississippi levees, on the rails, and into the Promised Land: Chicago, Up South, the High Rise Nest of Jim Crow, Slum Lord, Blue-Uniformed Overseer--No Place for a "Native Son" or a "Raisin in the Sun" to be!

"Shifting Sounds," the post-World War I Black Northern migration, segues into the powerful "Industrialization" sequence. This is a stellar theatrical movement! The iron scaffold construction, lighting, and steam effects represent an essential use of Broadway resources to capture the texture of the Chicago factory. Within this space, the percussive sounds of the factory's machinery creates a poly-rhythmic symphony to accompany the multi-layered TAPsody of the workers. just as the rural, Southern environment of the plantations informed 'Da Beat, so did the urban, Northern environment of the factories--yet, another transformation re-shaping, reinventing that which had been re-shaped, all within 'Da Beat.

The Northern experience of factory work and jazzified night life quickly dissipates into a surreal nightmare too horrific to be fiction: Red Summer, the Chicago Riot of 1919, one of the bloodiest White-initiated riots in American history. "The Chicago Riot Rag" symbolizes the many race riots and lynching of Blacks and "niggah lovers" during Jim Crow's undisputed reign as lawmaker of the land, an illegal and extra-legal enforcer--welcome home gifts for Black GIs who were "getting too far out their places." The sarcastic, ironic overstatement of 'Da Singer--"Don't let the crackers fool you. Come join the ranks Up North"--signifies an experience known too well by Afro-America: The Big White Lie, The Forked Tongue, The Betrayal.