This Saturday is the annual commemoration of the end of slavery in the United States, a time to celebrate, certainly, but also to meditate over the current state of black lives in America. Three productions available on covid-hangover video this weekend showcase powerful perspectives from African-American theatermakers in the Bay Area and Los Angeles.
Manifesto is a puckish take on the post-pandemic cusp by Rotimi Agbabiaka, a queer Bay Area performer who has brought distinctive shamanic sparkle to productions for companies from The San Francisco Mime Troupe to the California Shakespeare Company, where he played a memorable shade-throwing harem overseer in House of Joy.
Agbabiaka wrote and performs this series of quick-cut sketches and musical interludes that make up Manifesto, which was originally created as a solo stage show but has been significantly reimagined to take advantage of video production, with jump cuts and flashy edits that feel perfectly suited to the material.
“As we return to public gatherings and live theatre,” Rotimi has written “I wanted to revisit…the would-be stars, the gatekeepers, and creative ancestors like James Baldwin and Nina Simone. What would they have to say about theatre’s recent past and what guidance could they give for its future?”
The show is packed with big yuks and big issues. Its celebratory and cerebral, as befits the moment.
In person screening with live Q&A. Sunday at 8pm. $20. Brava Theatre, 2781 24th St.On-demand. Monday, June 21 through July 18. $15.
Pillow Talk shrewdly borrows the title of one of the whitest, insincerest movies of all time, in which Doris Day succumbs to Rock Hudson’s glib machismo, for what looks to be a sharp, sensitive take on intimacy between Black men. Theatre Rhinoceros’ new commission is written by Kheven Lagrone, who hails from Oakland and sets his play there in the 1990s.
It centers on the relationship between Baby Boy, a young street hustler, and Chuck, an upwardly mobile older man—who may become Oakland’s first police chief. There’s a precarious dance between tension and affection as the two men straing to harmonize their commonalities with their differences. Devin A. Cunningham, an Oakland native, beams in from Savannah, Georgia to play Baby Boy, and his video introduction to the character makes you look forward to spending more time with him. Tanika Baptiste directs.
Livestreaming Friday and Saturday, 8pm; Sunday 3pm. On demand Sunday, 5pm-Midnight.
The Latrell Show, from Los Angeles’ IAMA theater, is a campstravaganza on the surface with a dark undertow beneath. The brainchild of writer/performer Brandon Kyle Goodman, it begins as flaming, fast-talking TV-chat show parody—title character Latrell is the Billy Porteresque host— and evolves into a more complex examination of gay Black identity in contemporary America as Goodman takes on a second character, Jeremiah, a troubled office worker whose natural lack of showboating fabulosity renders him near-invisible. The piece’s structure doesn’t entirely work dramatically, but it shines as a showcase for Goodman’s talents: Effortlessly charismatic but simmering with subversiveness. Latrell is a supersmart hybrid of In Living Color laughs, Justin Sayre satire, and Sorry To Bother You surrealism. Catch Brandon Kyle Goodman now. You’ll say you knew him when.
On-demand through June 27. $15.
