"For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow is Enuf"
Planet Ant Theatre
Hamtramck, Mich.
Through Jan. 17
It’s been a long time since I left a theater this shaken up. Planet Ant’s production of “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf” has got my head spinning.
The 1976 play by Ntozake Shange highlights the experiences and pain carried by Black women. It is told by seven women through a combination of storytelling, poetry, singing and dance through a series of “choreopoems.” The play is the debut production of The Chocolate Box Theater Company, directed by CJ Williams, who co-founded the organization with Sheila Mac and La’Paige. Saturday’s cast featured Danae Ross, Nisa Miller, Sonya Ellis, Asia Robinson, La’Paige, Mac and Kayla Raines.”
“For Colored Girls” was unlike anything I’d seen before. In simple black garments adorned with scarves on a nearly bare stage, the women sang and spoke their stories. The ensemble cast rotated with one person giving a monologue supported by the rest of the women through responsive dialogue, songs, weaving in rotations and simple moves.
I didn’t always fully understand what was happening with the different stories, but the emotion behind them was clear. A major throughline was expressing the pain from being abused, taken advantage of or being unappreciated by men. On the tamer end, the women conveyed the heartbreak of being cheated on by the men they loved and their disingenuous series of empty apologies. They talked about giving all their love – love that was “delicate, beautiful, sanctified, magic, Saturday Night, complicated and music” – only to have it thrown back in their faces or stolen.
On the more extreme end was an experience about being raped by a supposed friend, and the difficulties in the aftermath in being believed and prosecuting. Another poem described the loneliness and emotional and physical pain of having an abortion.
The most gut-wrenching aspect of the play was a story near the end about a woman, portrayed by Ross in her stage debut, trying to escape an abusive relationship with her two small children. In her desperation and despair, Ross broke the hearts of everyone in the audience as she tried to save her children from a man she used to love. Her story is the one that left me reeling.
The show is not all gloom and doom. There are moments of joy and healing and a celebration of survival, strength and sisterhood. It culminates with an optimism about finding one’s inner divinity – especially when feeling on the brink of suicide.
I generally prefer direct storytelling to poetry and more abstract theater, and it took me a minute to settle into the performance. I found myself more engaged as the show went on. By the end I was at the edge of my seat, engrossed and distraught. While there were moments of entertainment, “For Colored Girls” is more of an emotional expose of the trauma experienced by Black women but also a message of hope, resilience and finding one’s self-worth. It’s a powerful program that will stick with me for years to come.
