Song of a Reformed Headhunter

John Kander and Fred Ebb teamed up for the last time to write "The Scottsboro Boys." (Ebb died in 2004.) The musical provocatively revives the racist theatrical tradition of the minstrel show to "tell the truth" about nine young black men convicted wrongly of raping two white women in rural Scottsboro, Alabama, in 1931. In doing so, the musical "deconstructs" the assumptions of white superiority that underlay the minstrel show. It also demonstrates how art forms associated with African Americans are rooted in the experience of slavery. In an interview, 83-year-old Kander said that he had actually directed minstrel shows at a boys' camp in the 1930s. They were a part of the national culture then, performed without much thought about their offensiveness. The 1930s are not really that long ago. They are within living memory. As Haywood Patterson, one of the nine men, Joshua Henry was a powerful and charismatic presence on stage. John Cullum played the...

Watched this satire of media fame at the Ambassador Theatre yesterday afternoon with TB. Directed by Walter Bobbie, Choreography by Ann Reinking, Lyrics by Fred Ebb, Music by John Kander, Book by Fred Ebb and Bob Fosse. The original production was directed and choreographed by Bob Fosse. Late 1920s Chicago was less a Scene than a matrix of social interactions; the orchestra on stage formed an integral part of the entertainment called American justice. Bonnie Langford was a vivacious Roxie Hart who shot and killed her lover, and so gained, for a while, the notoriety that she had always longed for. Visibly past her sell-by-date, Langford's Roxie was fueled by a convincing desperation. Her husband Amos Hart was played by a very funny Raymond Bokhour. His rendition of "Mister Cellophane," as he swayed slightly on his feet, was entirely memorable. He filled the stage with his presence while remaining compactly himself. Tom Hewitt played the crooked lawyer Billy Flynn. He was...