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Review
A Boy and His Soul
Vineyard Theatre
October 10, 2009
Morgan Wycks
mwycks@nyconstage.org
Once playwright and performer Colman Domingo gets the ball
rolling in his ode to family, music and coming out of the closet, I'm not sure
that a better time could be had by anybody. Growing up in Philadelphia and
reaching his teens in the mid to late 70's, Mr. Domingo's life was ruled by
vinyl platters which shaped his view of the world and led to the discovery how
fantasy and reality could surprisingly easily co-exist. As one record after
another drop from the arm of the phonograph player onto the turntable, the songs
reverberate with emotion, hope and attitude-shaping habits. In college and then
grad school at the time that most of these selections date, I couldn't help but
be transported to Saturday afternoons and watching Soul Train emanating from
Philadelphia. Instead of cramming in the library stacks learning my lessons, I
instead learned a myriad of dance moves that could cripple me today. But how the
poorer off I and countless others would be without that era as Mr. Domingo so
vividly points out. Inhabiting the likes of his doting mother, his macho
brother, his distant father, his hilarious chain-smoking sister and others, Mr.
Domingo conveys an entire moment of American history through his characters'
specificity, a brief turbulent age in a spurt of the country's growing pains.
Like many great classical musicians, Mr. Domingo, his director, Ken Roberson,
and choreographer, Tony Kelly, shape and compose the work into a masterful
symphony, a soul-inflected rhythm and blues. Though a bit too long, especially
in the unfocussed first 15 minutes, Mr. Roberson stages Mr. Domingo's journey
with electric style and smartly has him under-playing the coming-out sequence
which we have all seen over the top once too often. The important point made by
Mr. Domingo is the significance of music and how it informs us of what we feel
and want to feel and how it can bind the disparate personalities of those around
us. It not only reflects the soul but just as often as not can create it. Today,
with music sales way down, its drab, uninspired packaging no longer making a
release special, I worry about the souls of boys (and girls) developing the kind
humanity that A Boy and His Soul inspires.
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