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WINDY CITY TIMES
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It's All-Right To Have A Good Time: The Story of Curtis Mayfield
THEATER REVIEW
by Mary Shen Barnidge 2013-10-02
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This article shared 4287 times since Wed Oct 2, 2013
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Playwright: book by Jackie Taylor, music & lyrics by Curtis Mayfield et al. At: Black Ensemble Theater, 4450 N. Clark St. Tickets: 773-769-4451; www.blackensembletheater.com; $55-$65. Runs through: open run
When you've come to see a pop-concert musical, it can be startling for the first scene to reveal a man immobilized on a reclining slab. You register your shock and wait for him to laugh and stand up"I was just messin' with you-all"but he doesn't. Instead, he explains the miracle of nature that allows him to breathe, and thus speak. We are relieved when he later addresses us from a wheelchair because by then, we realize that he is Curtis Mayfield, whose successful career as a composer/musician met its sole setback in 1990 when an accident at an outdoor concert left his 48-year-old body paralyzed.
Youngsters nowadays ( and many oldsters, too ) might remember Mayfield in connection with the 1972 action-movie, Superfly, for which he wrote the score ( after the film producers agreed to let him retain copyright thereon ). Others may associate him with the civil-rights anthems "People Get Ready" and "Choice of Colors." Few people recall that he also wrote Jerry Butler's breakthrough hit "He Will Break Your Heart;" introduced a dance to the American repertoire with Major Lance's "Monkey Time;" and implemented Hollywood actor Sidney Poitier's singing debut with the gospel anthem "Amen" in the award-winning film Lilies of the Field. Indeed, for most of the 1960s and '70s, there was hardly a radio station where you couldn't hear a Curtis Mayfield composition, whether "Gypsy Woman" on top 40 radio or "This is My Country" on underground FM.
Since this is a Black Ensemble production, audiences know to expect a spartan text, but making music our biodrama's predominant vehicle is not inappropriate for an artist whose work so closely reflected his own consciousness. Reginald E. Torian renders the inert Mayfield's reminiscences so charmingly serenewinking at a mossy "that reminds me of a song" intro or crooning a sweetly poignant "I'm So Proud" to his caregiving wifethat we eagerly anticipate his every appearance. In the role of the young Curtis, Cecil Jones is no slacker, but can't help but be eclipsed by Rueben D. Echoles' dazzling urban-violence ballets and Robert Reddrick's stage band, located at floor-level so that we can marvel at the genius of each chord's construction from wah-wah backbeat to falsetto descant. |
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This article shared 4287 times since Wed Oct 2, 2013
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