Menu Close

Tag / young black men

Treading Water: Frank Ocean’s “channel ORANGE”

– PRIDE MONTH 2020 –

The apartment was empty.

None of Gwen’s pots rumbled on the stove, and Dania wasn’t holding any conversation in their living room. The sun shone through the window––in their haste to leave, none of the trio had thought to close the blinds, and keep the sun from discoloring the art on the walls. It was, on this hot summer evening, quiet at home.

The streets were not quiet. Protests across the country had flamed every night for nearly three weeks, met with violent responses from government forces and police squads. Images of burned-out storefronts and activists washing pepper spray from their faces had filled every social media timeline, to a degree never seen before in the modern political age. The last few years had been an impossibly stressful time, the conscience of the country bending to accommodate the strain being put onto it. But, at least to the other protesters who shared the street with Gwen, Eleanor, and Dania––at least to them, the dam had finally burst.

Continue Reading

Desire To See: Hedy Weiss’ “Pass Over” Review

PART OF CHICAGO THEATRE WEEK 2018

 

I’ve always left “Ragtime” infused with renewed optimism…This time I felt quite sad. That’s a perfectly legitimate thing to wish might happen to an audience in the theater, and Bowling is a very capable and often-compelling director of musicals; I am just not convinced it is fair to this piece.

Gwen stopped on that line in Chris Jones’ review of Ragtime at the Marriott. She considered what the context of that criticism really was – Jones’ disappointment that a musical that typically left him hopeful was given a less optimistic makeover.

Continue Reading