Theater Review: The Scottsboro Boys

Oh Boys! Scottsboro is Savvy, Sad and Stupendous
By Lauren Yarger
It’s a show that makes you cringe with awkward, uneasy embarrassment, but it’s not because of the singing, dancing and acting – they’re all superior. In the case of The Scottsboro Boys, the last musical partnership of John Kander and Fred Ebb (both credited with music and lyrics), the unease comes from thoroughly enjoying yourself as a tale of horrible injustice unfolds. It’s guilty pleasure.

Set as a minstrel show, a racist form of entertainment popular in America in the early 19th century, The Scottsboro Boys tells the true tale of nine black men convicted in 1931 Alabama for raping two white women. The men, one of whom was only 13 years old, went through numerous trials and retrials for years, despite the fact that one of the women recanted her story. Their plight prompted protests nationally, changed laws about juries and legal representation and is one of the most glaring examples of racial injustice in the nation’s history.

Turning this tragic story into a musical would seem no easy task, but using the minstrel show form, with its two end men, Mr. Bones (Colman Domingo) and Mr. Tambo (Forrest McClendon) with an Interlocutor (John Cullum), a sort of emcee who interacts with them and the others in the troupe, is a masterful stroke of genius. A gripping book by David Thompson (who also has written the book for other Kander and Ebb musicals like Chicago and Steel Pier), skillful and creative direction by Susan Stroman, who also choreographs, and an excellent ensemble cast not only succeed in telling the story, but create one of the savviest, moving and dynamic musicals to hit a Broadway stage is quite a while.

The interlocutor, the endmen and the Scottsboro Boys (Josh Breckenridge, Derrick Cobey, Jeremy Gumbs, Joshua Henry, Rodney Hicks, Kendrick Jones, James T. Lane, Julius Thomas III, Christian Dante White) also assume other identities to help tell the story. White and Lane, for example, play the two women of questionable character who cry rape and Tambo and Bones play the roles of the white redneck-type sheriff and deputy who arrest the nine men doing nothing more than riding a train one day looking for jobs and better lives.

Every performance is excellent, with Henry featured as Haywood Patterson, who rebels at the injustice. “Song and dance” take on a more sinister meaning as he changes his strong assertion of his innocence to a milder, more pleasing plea to accommodate the whites in control of his fate.

Standing out is Gumbs, who plays the youngest victim, Eugene Williams, who taps up a storm and who sings with a lovely tenor advanced for someone so young.

Cullum, always excellent, is perfect as the Interlocutor, a Southern gentleman with kind manners and a friendly smile on the outside who struggles to hide his disdain and utter lack of genuine compassion for the nine victims. Stroman expertly balances the placement of the Interlocutor between center stage and disinterestedly wandering around the action -- like the nation’s indifference toward discrimination at the time -- paying lip service, but not really concerned enough to get involved.

The Interlocutor really just wants a happy ending (a cake walk, in the case of a minstrel show) and insensitively declares one when four of the nine prisoners are released, oblivious to the fact that the five still wrongly imprisoned and facing possible hanging might not agree with him.

Also wandering around the action is The Lady (Sharon Washington) who silently is moved by the boys’ situation. She represents the spirit of African Americans forced to remain quiet – until she speaks in a dramatic way to show how the Scottsboro case was a forerunner to the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

Intricate storytelling also surfaces with the arrival of Samuel Leibowitz (also played by McClendon), a New York attorney who takes over the Boys’ case. A song called “Financial Advice” in which Jews and their money are ridiculed makes you cringe, until you realize that it brings to light the same kind of prejudice and indifference toward Jews. Leibowitz, after all, took over the case in 1933, just when Hitler was coming into power in Germany.

Beowolf Boritt’s very simple set is framed by three angled frames that look like railroad ties – and a gallows. CChairs with metallic slats are creatively used to create the train car (tamborines become the locomotive's wheels), the prison (the slats are the bars), the court and other locations.

The final number, performed in black face, is the last uneasy step in the journey, in which the audience has been an accomplice from the top when the minstrel show enters through the theater's house. It’s masterful storytelling and Stroman’s best work since The Producers and don't be surprised when it receives numerous award nominations at the end of the season.

The Scottsboro Boys is at the Lyceum Theater, 149 West 45th St., NYC. Discounted tickets are available through Masterwork Productions by clicking here.