Tonight I saw my last play in the Woolly Mammoth season, Bootycandy. It consisted of a collection of sketches (which ultimately were revealed to be interconnected) that appeared to be comedic on the surface, but covered challenging aspects of race, racial culture, sexual identity, etc. The cast were mostly black with only one white actor. There were a couple of unique aspects of the production, where just before the intermission, after about four of these sketches, there was another sketch that sort of broke down the barrier with the audience of a conference of theater writers (the audience was the conference attendees), where each actor played the author of one of the preceding sketches and described a bit of what they were about. They also explicitly said it’s not supposed to be easy to watch … “it was hard to write, it should be hard to digest”, directly addressing some of the challenging topics. In the second half they again pretended to abruptly halt due to the emotional state of one actor, brought up the lights, reset the stage, and moved onto the last scene.
There was one sketch that was hilarious: the un-committment ceremony of two women. The speeches mirroring wedding vows, where they ripped each other, and even the preacher’s variant of Corinthians espousing the power of hate, were perfect parody. I’m sure anybody who had gone through a divorce could have related.
The acting was very good, and despite the subject matter that made me a bit uneasy, it was a wonderful play to see. I’m going to miss having and avant garde theatre like this a block from where I live.