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Alessandra Mello/American Conservatory Theater Usher (played by Malachi McCaskill, center) fronts some of his alter-egos, played by, from left, Jordan Barbour, Avionce Hoyles, John-Andrew Morrison and J. Cameron Barnett, in “A Strange Loop” at American Conservatory Theater.
Black loves matter!
That’s one of many wry rallying cries in the badass new musical “Strange Loop,” as our hero Usher grapples with being “big, Black, and queer” on the Great White Way.
Silly and cerebral, tuneful and tart, this meta-theatrical musical, tightly directed by Stephen Brackett, sucks us deep into the whirlpool of a quarter-life identity crisis with heartbreaking authenticity.
Usher (the sweetly endearing Malachi McCaskill), an insecure musical theater writer about to turn 26, enters into a Thunderdome-style battle with his own pesky thoughts as he works as an usher at “The Lion King” on Broadway in this gleefully foul-mouthed 100-minute tour-de-fierce, the first musical by a black person to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
Usher and six embodied shards of his stream of consciousness, from his daily self-loathing to his ambiguous sexuality (each played by separate actors), are the stars of Michael R. Jackson’s fourth-wall-shattering Tony-winning tuner, which more than lives up to expectations in its raucous West Coast premiere at San Francisco’s American Conservatory Theater, a co-production with the Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles.
Jackson’s cheeky exploration of coming-of-age in a chaotic world where labels are hard to shake and money is hard to make is both wry and genuine, playful and angsty.
Arnulfo Maldonado’s boxy set design perfectly captures the claustrophobia of being trapped in your own head. Usher is all brain and no bravado. When a cutie on the subway asks him, “Did you see ‘Hamilton’?” Usher responds witheringly, “I’m poor.”
He may sneer at Broadway’s middlebrow hucksterism but he also names his mom and dad Mufasa and Sarabi. He may loathe Disney commercialism but it still frames his sense of self, making navigating his plus-size blackness even more complicated. He often escapes from his vortex of self-loathing by channeling his Liz Phair vibe. “Inner White Girl” is one of many gems here.
His church-going parents only complicate matters further. His mom (a moving John-Andrew Morrison, a Tony Award nominee for the role) wants him to come to Jesus while his dad gets drunk and crosses lines into disturbing territory. They both beg Usher to write a Tyler Perry-style gospel musical, which he does with a vengeance in the musical’s blistering “Precious Little Dream” interlude, a showstopper punctuated by revelatory choral lamentation.
Jackson’s wild and wanton juxtaposition of the soulful and the unsettling, the high-brow and the kitschy — nodding from “Golden Girls” to Zora Neale Hurston, from the Chitlin Circuit to Tony Kushner — keeps us riveted to this dizzying funhouse mirror of a musical.
Contact Karen D’Souza at karenpdsouza@yahoo.com.
‘A STRANGE LOOP’
Book, music and lyrics by Michael R. Jackson, presented by American Conservatory Theater
Through: May 12
Where: ACT’s Toni Rembe Theater, 415 Geary St., San Francisco
Running time: 110 minutes, no intermission
Tickets: $25-$137; www.act-sf.org
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