Choir Boy Uncommon Hero

Curious minds love the unexpected. Visiting a new story is chance to be surprised. If you’re lucky you’ll even be moved. If you’re exceptionally lucky, you’ll also laugh. All those things and more sloshed through Raven Theater’s production of Tarell Alvin McCraney’s Choir Boy. Fresh as a sunrise, the hour and a half play made you feel as if they were drinking from a bottomless trough of Dom Perignon.  Even when it was over, you wanted more.

We’ve seen stories of strong black men. But Pharus Jones (Christopher W. Jones) fits no standard profile of a hero. An outsider among outsiders, his battles only ends when he sleeps.

We meet him at the end of his sophomore year at Drew Prepatory School, a high school created to mold young black men into exemplars. Thinkers, doers and triumphants. Pharus is all of those things but the aspect of himself that makes him different, the thing he doesn’t hide or suppress or apologize for sets him far apart. We can call him an alpha other. Respected, yes.  But also reviled or simply shunned because of his refusal to pretend. Pharus’s sole ambition at Drew, thanks to his impressive musical gifts and indomitable ambition, is to lead the school’s all male chorus. His nemesis, ardent homophobe and fellow choir boy Bobby (Patrick Agada), can’t touch his arsenal of intellect and resolve. Their rivalry is ceaseless and vitriolic.

McCraney knows what he’s dealing with; a powerful writhing Anaconda of a story. You could get lost in the tension. His brilliance was to modulate conflict with the most sublime form of love. Black spirituals. It’s a wonder that it all melded together so beautifully. The music, all acapella and all exquisitely performed, acted as a balm; giving the audience a chance to breathe and the story a chance to transition from plateau to plateau.

Early on David (Darrin Patin) stood out. He looked different. He spoke differently. And there was stillness in him that drew cautionary attention. A go along to get along guy, he aspired to the ministry and declared he “walked with the Lord” with all the sincerity of a earnest 17-year- old. Radar picked him up for a reason.

Treading through vistas of the male psyche, pushing back tall grasses revealing the underpinnings of male sexuality; all within a black context, had the effect of watching the Northern lights.  A brilliantly complex display of natural wonder that, in this case, also asked what it takes to accept ourselves as well as others.

High school is treacherous regardless of where you live or what you look like. I can’t imagine even the adored really enjoying it. All of the surreptious and blatant clawing and judging.  To enter that battle with a scarlet letter hanging from your belt buckle will make you or break you. That’s what makes Pharus so refreshing.  Finally a character who doesn’t attempt to disappear into the woodwork.  One who fully recognizes what they have to offer the world and is his own unflagging champion.  What the world forgets is that for every person like him, there are more who share his differentness but not his courage.

McCraney gives them all their own dignity.  The supportive cast is amply supplied with lines that make their characters’ blood pulse red.  Pharus’s jock roommate A.J. (Tamarus Harvell) is as even keeled as Solomon and has the good sense to judge a person by what they do for others rather than who they want to sleep with.

Even Junior (Julian Otis), sidekick to the heavy, knows where to draw the line between loyalty and ethical integrity.

You’d think a killer story, great performances and astute directorial skills would have been enough to seal the deal on the play’s exceptionalism.  And they did.  But the lily was extensively gilded with the richest language plucked directly from the streets.  Two ladies sitting one row back gasped with recognition listening to it making the joy in their muted laughter exuberant nonetheless. They connected with it and they loved it.  I don’t think a playwright could ask for a better accolade to his work.

The MacArthur genius award is no wannabe. It’s an award given to visionaries and intended for people who toil in a place where intelligence and creativity merge in the stratosphere. What they give the world are gifts. Choir Boy is one of those gifts.

Choir Boy

September 27 – November 12, 2017

Raven Theater

6127 N. Clark St

Chicago, IL

773-338-2177