cover design by Paul Davis
with music by Kysia Bostic
"There comes a time when a satirical
writer, if he's really out for blood, must stop clowning around
and move in for the kill. That unmistakable moment of truth
arrives about halfway through THE COLORED MUSEUM, the wild new
evening of black black humor at the Public Theater. In a sketch
titled `The Last Mama-on-the-Couch Play,' the author, George C
Wolfe, says the unthinkable, says it with uncompromising wit and
leaves the audience, as well as a sacred target, in ruins. The
devastated audience, one should note, includes both blacks and
whites. Mr. Wolfe is the kind of satirist, almost unheard of in
today's timid theater, who takes no prisoners.... The issue
raised by his Hansberry parody percolates in every sketch: How do
American black men and women at once honor and escape the legacy
of suffering that is the baggage of their past?...The other
`exhibits' in Mr. Wolfe's museum are contemporary blacks torn
between the cultural legacy of oppression and revolt and the
exigencies of living in the present. Perhaps the prototypical
Wolfe character is a pin-stripe-suited businessman who tries to
throw away his past (`Free Huey' buttons, Sly Stone records, his
first dashiki) only to discover that his rebellious younger self
refuses to be trashed without a fight...."
Frank Rich, The New York Times
The eleven "exhibits" in THE COLORED MUSEUM are
GIT ON BOARD, 1 F
COOKIN' WITH AUNT ETHEL, 1 F
THE PHOTO SESSION, 1 M, 1 F
SOLDIER WITH A SECRET, 1 M
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MISS ROJ, 2 M
THE HAIRPIECE, 3 F
THE LAST MAMA-ON-THE-COUCH PLAY, 1 M, 3 F, and a narrator
SYMBIOSIS, 2 M
LALA'S OPENING, 4 F
PERMUTATIONS, 1 F
THE PARTY, 1 M, 4 F
music parts available for rental for
production are:
keyboard/conductor, synthesizer, guitar,
bass, drums, misc. percussion, vocal, trumpet, trombone,
tenor sax I, and tenor sax II.
I S B N: 0-88145-052-9, $8.95