A scene from The Scottsboro Boys at the Young Vic. Picture: Roy Tan
The Scottsboro Boys continues at the Young Vic, London until 21 December.
Once in a while an original cast album comes along that really excites, grabs the imagination and makes one long to see it staged. The Scottsboro Boys was such a one. After a long wait, it’s hats off to the Young Vic for finally realising a dream.
John Kander and the late Fred Ebb were never afraid to take on dark subject material and turn it into great theatrical entertainment. The rise of Nazism in Cabaret, political and gay imprisonment in South America – Kiss of the Spider Woman and Chicago’s murder and corruption. And now their last collaboration, focuses on the true story of nine young men who were wrongly accused of rape in 1931, and who faced the threat of the electric chair for years as trials and appeals dragged on (the book is by David Thompson). Having set those earlier musicals in the genres of cabaret, silent films and vaudeville, this telling of injustice and wasted lives is told in the form of a minstrel show. For this one time popular form of entertainment, white artists used to black up and play on stereotypes like the ‘slave’ and ‘mammy’. Here the tables are turned with black actors impersonating whites.
The show uses the traditional setting of the minstrel show, a semi-circle of chairs with the Interlocutor acting as host/MC. He is flanked by two pranksters, Mr Bones and Mr Tambo, who interrupt with jokes and caricature send-ups of the white authority figures in the story. The chairs play an important role in the show as they are used to create the scenery – a train, court room and the jail cells (set design by Beowulf Boritt).
The music on the CD, jolly, jaunty and occasionally wistful, does not convey the true horror of this story of cynical injustice and racial bigotry that still remains a large blot on American history. It falls to the spoken words to provide some harrowing and powerful scenes. Director and choreographer Susan Stroman manages to weld the diverse elements of the show into a thoroughly entertaining piece that also leaves the audience with a lot to think about. She has devised some dynamic dance routines which are brilliantly executed by the hard-working cast. She even manages to incorporate in the nightmare scene, ‘Electric Chair’, a slick tap number.
Every member of the cast contributes to this great example of ensemble playing. Several players were in the original American production including Colman Domingo and Forrest McClendon as Mr Bones and Mr Tambo. They provide a lot of the humour in their multiple roles, often outrageously exaggerated. Another original performer, Christian Dante White, squeezes every ounce of comedy out of his transformation into Victoria Price, one of the “Alabama Ladies” who make the false rape accusation. He is joined by James T Lane as Ruby Bates, strutting like a diva in the court room dance number ‘Never Too Late’. Veteran actor Julian Glover takes on the role of Interlocutor and fully captures this fatherly yet hypocritical figure as he leads the young men through their story.
An outstanding performance comes from Kyle Scatliffe as Haywood Patterson, the most outspoken of the accused. Blessed with a powerful yet lyrical voice he shines in ‘Nothin’’ and in the plaintiff ‘Go Back Home’. Dawn Hope appears as The Lady throughout the show. She interweaves amongst the action, saying nothing, just observing the action like the chorus in a Greek tragedy. She speaks a few words at the end of the show, possibly the most famous words to alter the course of American history.
So was the wait worthwhile? You bet.
Barrie Jerram
Read an interview with Colman Domingo from The Scottsboro Boys in issue three of Musical Theatre Review
https://musicaltheatrereview.com/latest-issue-3
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