A Strange Loop review – Michael R Jackson’s thrilling Broadway triumph

Lyceum Theatre, New York

The audacious and uproarious musical, which leads this year’s Tony nominations, is a meta masterpiece about a Black queer writer writing about a Black queer writer

Michael R Jackson’s A Strange Loop is many, many things. Cutting, uproarious and crushing, it doesn’t try to be all of these in its hour and 45 min running time, but just is. A gymnastics-like excavation into one man’s search for himself complete with “Black shit!,” “White shit!” and “butt-fucking!”

Usher, a Black, fat, queer man, is a begrudged usher for a Disney Broadway show by day while, in his free time, he works on his masterwork A Strange Loop, a musical about a Black, queer, fat man writing a musical about a Black, queer, fat man, and so forth.

Related: Tony awards 2022: A Strange Loop leads the nominees, while British talents are lauded

Usher’s feigned desire to produce a “big, Black, queer-ass, American Broadway show” frequently sputters out as he deals with overwhelming bouts of heckling from his six inner thoughts (played by Antwayn Hopper [understudied by Jon-Michael Reese], James Jackson Jr, L Morgan Lee [understudied by Mars Rucker], John-Michael Lyles, Jason Veasy, and John-Andrew Morrison), who cosplay as his Bible-loving parents, rejecting lovers and other potholes.

In Jackson’s complicated, full work, Usher – as a young artist and a young adult trying to make his way – is only one part of the story. The musical, which won the Pulitzer prize for drama in 2020 and leads this year’s Tony nominations, homes in on the hilarity and devastation akin to Usher’s existence while also hitting more meta-meditations on the structures that seek to make Usher feel small: an intersection of anti-Blackness, fatphobia, homophobia and Tyler Perry.

It’s not just the dismissal Usher faces from his mother, who espouses love for her youngest son but an alarm for Usher’s soul amid his fraternization with “Hollywood homosexuals”. It’s not just his father, who drunkenly leaves Usher voicemails, asking his son if he’s sexually attracted to him. It’s the oppressive disgust Usher has for himself, cosigned by all the gay men who won’t sleep with him. It’s the white theater industry which only has a seat for melodramatic gospel plays written by Tyler Perry at its wobbly table (“Now that nigga knows how to write for the Blacks and make money,” echoes Usher’s father/Thought 6).

So, A Strange Loop asks, how can Usher define himself outside the daily self-loathing (hysterically and empathetically played by Jackson Jr) as well as the condemnation that is mapped onto him? What does it take to break the cycle when every beam Usher leans on for support cracks under the weight of him being his truest self?

Jackson’s answer is a thoughtful, hilarious, layered Strange Loop. The bracing musical never feels out of breath by all it wants to cover, giving plenty of song to Usher’s personal shortcomings amid honest jabs at the people, places, and things that leave him stuck. It also isn’t didactic or overdrawn, not so much prescription to Usher’s disappointments that are so startlingly felt, but describing them as is, with a humor and sincerity that feels completely brand new.

Seamlessly transitioning between hilarity and devastation, Strange Loop leans into absurdity, yes, but gives room for the sadness and denial that orbit Usher. Even as Usher sings about the unrestricted existence of white girls in the pop ballad Inner White Girl, the underbelly of the song, that the lives of Black boys are boxed in via society’s ideals, crashes in like an emotional wrecking ball. Exile in Gayville holds similar energy. A reconstruction of Usher’s difficulty navigating gay dating apps, the upbeat ode equally holds the endless rejection Usher faces from almost everyone for being “too Black,” “too fat,” and “too feminine.” Raja Feather Kelley’s choreography infuses joy and play as Usher’s inner thoughts dance jubilantly to songs detailing his angst while also using movement to demonstrate the burdens Usher battles to stay true, like in the gut punch that is the show’s second to last song, Memories.

Coupled with Jen Schriever’s intelligent lighting, stunning set design by Arnulfo Maldonado, including a full-out remake of a Tyler Perry set (with some add-ons) used later in the musical, precisely capture the show’s tone.

Jackson’s book and energetic music is further uplifted under the direction of Stephen Brackett and the cast’s prowess. Usher’s six inner thoughts act and sing harmoniously, but equally triumph as individual reminders. Amid a star quality cast, Jason Veasay delivers as Thought 5 and as Usher’s stoic, disappointed father. John-Andrew Morrison as Thought 4 and Usher’s mother effortlessly embodies the overwhelming fear she has for her son, swinging between disappointment, anxiety, and humor with ease.

The show’s lead, Jaquel Spivey, so rawly captures the debasement that undergirds much of Usher’s life without betraying Usher as a complete victim to his circumstances. Spivey is sharp and sarcastic, but also wounded, rounded out into the whole person that Usher wants so badly to be but doesn’t realize he already is.

The biggest (and only) disappointment of A Strange Loop is its lack of an automatic encore. The show is so precise and awake, from top to bottom, that having the privilege of sitting through it only once feels unfair.