Photo by Vanessa Crocini
Reviewed by Julyza Commodore
REDCAT
Closed
What happens when a right-wing White Woman finds herself trapped inside of a Black Man’s body? That is the question that is posed in Paul Outlaw’s latest work, Big Black Cockroach.
Outlaw is a Los Angeles and Berlin-based multidisciplinary artist with just some of the mediums that he explores being performance art, physical theater and spoken word. As stated on his website, “I tell the stories of my family, my community and my world, and in those stories I take on multiple roles. I am male, I am female; I am Black, I am White; I am young, I am old; I am you, I am me.”
Big Black Cockroach explores Black manhood and White womanhood through different characters. In this 70-minute long performance, he addresses the violence and torment that Black men have experienced since 1826 when he describes the life of a slave, Tiresias, who was treated brutally. Because Outlaw is shifting between characters with an invigorating sense of passion, it is easy to forget that only one artist is performing onstage. Although thedepth of the subject matter can be difficult to confront, it is a meaningful confrontation about not only the treatment of Black men, but also privilege and how it has oppressed so many for a long time.
During the show, Outlaw takes a few minutes to interact with the audience and talks a bit about White Privilege. Yet his view isn’t necessarily one that is cut and dried. It is something that needs to be processed, something that you think about after you leave the theater and try to connect the dots, whether the issues raised are within your personal life or not. It is complex, provocative, bold and everything in between.
REDCAT, Roy and Edna Disney Cal Arts Theatre, 631 W. Second Street., dwntwn. Closed.
