By André Hereford on February 10, 2022 @here4andre
A heartfelt ode to fathers and sons, finding your voice, and growing up hip-hop, Psalmayene 24’s epistolary drama Dear Mapel (★★★★☆) also profoundly honors the lost art of letter-writing. That distinctly direct and intimate mode of expressing what’s most deeply felt, and saying what often can’t be spoken, serves as Psalm’s chosen means of addressing the father he barely knew.
Via letters to Mapel, the award-winning performer and playwright vividly evokes his own coming-of-age enriched by art and music, while examining the main thing, or person, that went missing.
For this world premiere production, director and production designer Natsu Onoda Power engulfs Mosaic’s Sprenger Theatre stage in a sweeping deluge of paper missives. Dozens more balled-up sheets of paper litter the floor, stray thoughts rejected or reconsidered.
The setting suggests a flood of stories, emotions, unaired grievances, and unshared joys, more than could be contained in a thousand letters, or however many it might take for the writer to feel some sense of closure.
The calm center of the storm at his writing desk, Psalm admits that closure remains elusive. But, as he quotes his Jamaican granddad, “nothing beats a failure but a try.”
So the show — which opens with Psalm’s beautifully written “I Am” poem introducing himself as an “incorrigible, nonconformist Jamerican…fly-ass motherfucker” — constitutes a powerful attempt to reach someone who can no longer respond. Though perhaps Mapel, as much as the audience, can still somehow receive the message.
That metal writing desk, the only piece of furniture onstage, turns out to be quite the adaptable supporting player as Psalm enacts fond reminiscences of growing up in Brooklyn, losing his virginity, founding the dance troupe Subtle Motion while attending Howard U., and growing from aspiring actor to accomplished artist.
His truest support along the 90-minute journey is actor-percussionist Jabari Exum, also brilliantly adaptable, whether stepping in to play backup dancer, bandmate, or various other roles.
Most often, Exum, also known as Jabari DC, supplies inspiring musical accompaniment on drums and percussion, as Psalmayene brings to life his search for self, and for flagrant womanizer Mapel. Some stories register as pleas to his dad, who was barely around when Psalm was a kid, became estranged as Psalm reached adulthood, then died before the two could firmly put their differences to rest.
Other tales from his life — including a fateful turn on Amateur Night at the Apollo, and an eye-opening stint as the only Black cast member in a European touring company of Pinocchio — illustrate tests of character that he could only have faced alone.
Warmly open in his interactions with the audience, Psalm entertains as a storyteller, while also transmitting layers of pain and grief, with hints of regret but no bitterness. And he uses humor effectively to handle sensitive subjects like the overwhelming anxiety of a Black man trying to choose a watermelon in the supermarket without looking like a stereotype.
These well-chosen bits and passages tend to offer modest stakes, definitely more life lessons than life or death. But we already know what’s at stake for fathers and sons, and we can feel for this artist, now a devoted husband himself, what’s at stake for him in every letter, real and imagined.
The letters themselves are the conversation and its record, poignant reminders to speak what can be spoken while you have the chance.
Dear Mapel runs through Feb. 13 at Atlas Performing Arts Center, 1333 H St. NE.
Video-on-demand production will be available for streaming Feb. 14 to 27.
Tickets for in-person performances are $68, and individual tickets for streaming are $40. Call 202-399-7993, ext. 2 or visit www.mosaictheater.org.
By Sean Maunier on April 21, 2022
Sydney Bennett -- aka Syd -- has been nothing if not consistent since she first came to prominence as a member of the hip-hop collective Odd Future, both as a vocalist and as the engineer behind their idiosyncratic sound. She continued to burnish her credentials as a lead vocalist of her own band, the alt-R&B outfit the Internet.
Since the band's members amicably split apart to pursue their own projects, she has made quite a name for herself in her solo career, with her 2017 debut Fin drawing glowing comparisons to the likes of Aaliyah and TLC.
Throughout her latest album, Broken Hearts Club, (★★★★☆) Syd is characteristically relaxed and effortlessly cool, so much that it is hard to tell at first that the album came out of the ashes of a personally devastating breakup, which she tells us was the first time she ever experienced real heartbreak.
By André Hereford on April 19, 2022 @here4andre
Not many of Jerrod Carmichael's fans or friends saw it coming when the 35-year-old actor-comedian, and star on three seasons of NBC sitcom The Carmichael Show, revealed to the live audience of his latest HBO standup comedy special that he's gay.
Carmichael's big news landed like a shockwave just before the April 1 release of the special, Rothaniel, and just in time to hype his recent stint as host on Saturday Night Live. The comic's strong showing on SNL served as a high-profile set-up for the hour-long special, his third for HBO, after Love at the Store, directed by Spike Lee, and 8, directed by Bo Burnham.
By Sean Maunier on April 9, 2022
Taking his cues from classic country while cultivating his own brand of queer cowboy kitsch, Orville Peck occupies a unique niche in the world of country.
Known for his carefully cultivated and enigmatic public identity and his literal, iconic tasseled mask as much as his music, Peck has gone in an unexpected direction with his second studio album, Bronco (★★★☆☆), bouncing back from a rough couple years with a newfound sense of confidence and a surprising willingness to offer a peek behind the mask.
From the beginning, Peck has made a name for himself as a queer country star, dealing with decidedly queer subject matter in his videos and promotional material, headlining gay events and collaborating with a stable of A-list drag queens.
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