For Colored Girls...
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Posted By: Charles Brooks on February 08, 2011 PRESS RELEASE For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/ When The Rainbow Is Enuf, an Obie-winning play is a 1975 experimental play by Ntozake Shange. Initially staged in California, it has been performed Off-Broadway and on Broadway, and adapted as a book, a television film, and a theatrical film. The 1977 Broadway production was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Play. Charistopher John Farley, Wall Street Journal writes, “When poet Ntozake Shange heard that filmmaker Tyler Perry wanted to make a movie version of her Obie-winning play “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide /When The Rainbow Is Enuf,” she said she had one ground rule. “No Mama Dearest,” Shange says. Does she mean Madea, the gun-toting grandmother character that Perry plays in some of his film? “Yes, Madea,” Shange says. “She couldn’t be in it.” Perry rewrote her original verse play, adding in non-poetic scenes. “He wrote those so he could connect one scene to another,” Shange says. “I didn’t use storylines per se.” How did she feel about the male characters he added to her all-female play? “I knew he had to add…well he didn’t have to add, but many people can’t imagine a movie without men.” The Hollywood Reporter, a trade magazine writes, “For once, Tyler Perry doesn't put his name above the title, but perhaps he should with "For Colored Girls" to distinguish this train wreck of a movie from the stunning theater piece of 36 years ago by Ntozake Shange. Hers was a tragic and sensuous hybrid of poetry, dance, drama and feminist theology -- it even has been called the most important work about black female identity ever. Perry might be very much in touch with his feminine side when he dons a dress and padding to play his larger-than-life character Madea, but his style is too crude and stagy for Shange's transformative evocation of black female life, and his moralizing strikes exactly the wrong notes to express the pain and longing that cries out from her heated poetry.” Due to the controversy between Tyler Perry’s film and Ntozake Shange’s Chorepoem For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When/ The Rainbow Is Enuf, Charles David Brooks, III, playwright, director, and Interim Chair of the Fine Arts Department, at Benedict College was urged to stage the play as it was performed on stage, live, on Broadway. Brooks was approached by several men, women, and students to stage the play so that they could see and experience a live performance without the entertainment aspects needed by Hollywood to sell tickets to the movie goers. Brooks attended the Previews of the stage production as it was opening on Broadway and then on opening night. Brooks stated that, “I made some attempts to see Perry’s movie but was not able to sit through it for dozing off. The opening of the movie played women in a submissive mode lacking the high energy displayed on the live stage.” Brooks started holding Auditions on January 12, 2011, since then, over 30 women have come to be considered for a role in the play. “The play begins and ends with the lady in brown. The other six performers represent the colors of the rainbow: the ladies in red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. The various repercussions of "bein alive & bein a woman & bein colored is a metaphysical dilemma" are explored through the words, gestures, dance, and music of the seven ladies, who improvise as they shift in and out of different roles. In the 1970s, when Ntozake Shange herself performed in for colored girls..., she continually revised and refined the poems and the movements in her search to express a female black identity. Improvisation is central to her celebration of the uniqueness of the black female body and language, and it participates in the play's theme of movement as a means to combat the stasis of the subjugation. In Shange preface she announces to readers that while they listen, she herself is already "on the other side of the rainbow" with "other work to do." She has moved on, as she expects her readers to do as well,” eNotes. Brooks acquired the Rights to stage the production from Samuel French, Inc., play Publishers and Authors’ Representatives. For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow Is Enuf is scheduled to open March 23, 2011, 7:00 pm and is expected to run until March 25, 2011, with a 3:00 pm Matinee, Saturday March 26, 2011. Reservations can be made by calling 803-705-4358 and/or email brooksc@benedict.edu. Tickets are $5.00 for General Admissions and $3.00 for students, seniors, and military personnel. Charles Brooks Professor of Theater Acting Chair of Fine Arts Department Director of Theatre Ensemble Benedict College FAHC 303 1600 Harden Street Columbia, SC 29204 803-705-4358 Office 803-705-6599 Fax email: brooksc@benedict.edu If you enjoyed this article, Join HBCU CONNECT today for similar content and opportunities via email! |
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Charles Brooks
Director of Theatre Ensemble, HBCU Benedict College Columbia Univ class of 1986 Member Since May 2005 |
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