Category — Critics’ Corner

The Scottsboro Boys balances historical tragedy and contemporary cynicism to achieve a humorous yet sorrowful dynamic.  In a narrative where all characters are played with black male actors, the shuffling of ethnic and gender roles generate a critical outlook on the trail of the Scottsboro Boys, a pivotal moment in history that propelled the civil rights movement. From the start of the play we are told that this production is arguably detailed from the perspective of the boys themselves.

The Broadway musical begins as are recollection of events bearing striking resemblances to circus spectacles that lend credit to the minstrelsy. The conductor is the only Caucasian actor in the plot, and his interaction with the other characters, both in the minstrel and the narrative of the story, serves as a thermometer of race relations throughout the performance. We first see a subjugate nature in their relationship, and later see it dissolved in the rubbing away of blackface paint, or proud tears of struggle. Viewers should be mindful of response the Scottsboro Boys offer to his roles.

The musical relies on the choreography of chair utilization, which are not simply used to prop up the victim of the electric chair or flaunt characters in eclectic dance, but also serve as the skeleton of the scenery.  While this approach is clearly frugal, it was appropriate, as the habitual glamour of Broadway may have drained the story of its harsh essence. The lighting was successful in setting the mood: deep warm reds offering moments of passion and cold tones of blue defining bitterness and struggle. Furthermore, warm oranges juxtapose the climatic warmth of the setting to the unsettling passion of the boys.

There is a vibrant synergy between the lighting and the faces of the performers. It radiates like wavelengths and celebrates the phenomenon of Broadway’s energetic world. Aside from the choreography, the unnoticeable nature of the direction attests to the organic flow of the acting. While some critics pointed out that the transition between joy and disaster are weak, they convinced me that I am still watching a musical. The pseudo-manic gestures authenticate the cynicism in the performance. While it was a source of controversy, with figures such as Reverend Al Sharpton raised pickets, actor Joshua Henry who played Haywood Patterson delivered a tear yielding finale that questioned the conservative diction of the picketers. Given the polarizing nature of the musical, reception will vary among the politically sensitive. However, one has little reason to be critical from an artistic standpoint.

The performance has much to offer to the liberal viewer; conservatives beware. In the artistic sense The Scottsboro Boys has a lot to offer, but historians may find the emotional undertones throughout the musical inappropriate and displaced.

http://musicalcyberspace.wordpress.com/2010/04/23/the-scottsboro-boys-recorded/

From the moment the actors stepped on stage, you could just tell that this was going to be a very upbeat, fast paced show. With the quirky music and excitement of the actors, it made you feel like they were about to put on a show about something they loved and couldn’t wait to show us. They made it seem like what they were performing was something good in history when it really wasn’t. The historical context behind “The Scottsboro Boys” is still evident throughout the musical though, but the way that it is presented to us works in a way that I feel is effective in that it never gets too serious or emotional for us to bear. They keep the context of the story easy going and add humor to the situation so that we are able to understand the significance behind it, but also strike a balance with humor to keep us entertained. I think it was very risky to do what John Kander and Fred Ebb did by making this story such a humorous, up tempo musical, being that many people might not take so lightly to such a serious topic. But personally, I appreciated the humor behind it because I think it makes everything easier for us to watch as viewers, and I also think humor is the the one thing in life that keeps us sane in life.

Obviously the story of the Scottsboro boys is not a laughing matter, but I think adding humor to the show and making it upbeat helps us to both view the historical meaning and also helps us be able to move past it. I don’t think anyone who actually see’s this show will walk out of the Lyceum Theatre and say, “Wow, segregation was funny back then.” The story is still powerful. You can still see the pain, emotion, and struggles the nine boys went through with that long ordeal. But when presented in a way where you can laugh every now and then, it eases the tension in watching it. There was one comment in the show that I thought to be especially funny. When thinking that they were getting released from prison and talking about what they were going to do once they got out, one of the boys responded by saying that he was going to buy two white girls to spend the night with to see what all this fuss was about. I don’t view that humor as taking anything away from the pain that they went through. I also don’t see that as “making fun” of the historical context. I see that as bringing humor to a serious topic which is something that we need sometimes. Sometimes we need to realize that this is a musical and not an actual re-enactment. If it were, it wouldn’t be so popular and bearable to watch. I think we need that humor to brighten a very dark situation.

One of my favorite aspects of the show itself was the use of characters. I loved how the white police officers and white girls were played by black, male actors. So much of the shows humor came from the scenes where these “white” people were shown. The over-exaggerated walking and talking was great satire in my opinion and kept me laughing with everything they did. It was a great way to poke fun at how ignorant they were. I think if the white people in the show were played by white people, it would cause more tension with everything and the whole show would be less humorous. Perhaps it would be too real and that would take away from the aim and purpose of the musical itself.

Another aspect of the show I thought was really well done was the use of chairs to put together different scenery. Just a few chairs were used for numerous settings. Different arrangements set the scene of a railroad car, a prison, a court room, a bus and probably a few other scenes that I can’t quite remember off hand. Simple props made the show what it was and it shows how effective something can be by just keeping things simple. One of my favorite scenes was the one where the boys are handcuffed on the bus and one of them attacks the driver and gets shot by the other officer. The use of lighting, music, and acting made this scene really dramatic. The stage lighting went red, the music got slower, and the actors started moving in slow motion. I thought that was a well done scene that used many different aspects of theater into making an effective show.

In conclusion, I’d like to finish off with how I started. There will probably always be people who take offense to a musical like this where humor and passion are used to tell a serious story. But in my opinion, that humor and passion is exactly what we need as viewers to understand the historical context and learn from it. I think that making a serious show that did a closer re-enactment to the history with more racism and prejudice wouldn’t serve us anything. We would just see it and be shocked. I think that would cause animosity and tension and that is not something we need. We need to be able to learn from the past and move forward…and I think humor was the right way to go in this case.

“These innocent boys are guilty,” the judge says leaving the Scottsboro Boys and viewers alike aghast.  This is one line from The Scottsboro Boys that still resonates in my mind, even though it has been days since I saw the musical.  This quote captures a truly perverse moment from America’s past, which the show, The Scottsboro Boys so effectively portrays.

The Scottsboro Boys uses the minstrel show art form, and although it is a racist form, it serves very efficiently as a source of comedic alleviation for what is a dark tale of injustice.  Some might feel hesitant to go and watch this performance if they hear that it takes on the form of a minstrel show; however, potential viewers shouldn’t let this affect their decision to watch this great show.  This is because at the end of the show, when the Scottsboro Boys remove their blackface, and disregard what the interlocutor is telling them to do, they show a much needed sign of rebellion against this form, and the stereotypical limitations forced upon them by it.

Overall, the acting in the musical was engaging and unique.  Joshua Henry’s portrayal of Haywood Patterson was one of the most compelling performances I have ever seen.  In the playbill, Haywood Patterson is quoted saying, “I don’t tell people stories.  I tell the truth.”  Joshua Henry acts in accordance with this quote, accurately exhibiting Mr. Patterson’s character.  His serious demeanor preserves the significance and gravity of this historical moment, even through the comical scenes that try to alleviate some of the gravity of the story.  All of the actors, especially Colman Domingo and Forrest Mcclendon, show their versatility as they tackle quite a few different roles in the show.   Although this made some scenes confusing, overall it was a humorous addition.  Also, the woman lurking in the background, who we later discover is Rosa Parks, does a great job of blending inconspicuously into the scenes.  In addition, just the fact that Rosa Parks was inspired by the incident that occurred with these young men shows both its prominence and influence.

As for the sets, although they were limited, the manner in which they were utilized was very effective. When I took my seat, and looked at the stage I saw a cluster of chairs; if someone were to tell me that all of the sets in the show would comprise of just these chairs, along with a few pieces of wood, I wouldn’t have believed them.  However as the show unfolded, these chairs began to transform magically into different things such as a train, a jail cell and more. At times I truly felt as if these chairs were actually what the actors were trying to show them to be.  Lighting helped establish the moods for every scene, and made the sets even more realistic.  Perhaps the most eye-catching scene from the show was the electric chair scene, in which lighting played a major role.  It used electricity and flashing lights to keep the attention of viewers glued to the stage.  The sets and lighting helped give life to the settings exhibited in the musical.

The music and the dancing served as the backbone for the musical. Hidden almost completely under the stage, the orchestra set the tone for every scene. For the darker or more nerve-racking scenes, such as those that showed the judge’s decisions, bass was prominent, and the bass drum was used to keep it strong.  However, for the most part, melodic instruments such as the trumpet are put in the forefront.  The dancing, especially for the melodic scenes ranged from being completely wacky to completely synchronized.  I found this very interesting, because I saw the synchronization as a representation of the constraints of the minstrel show form, and the wackiness as a representation of the freedom and justice sought by the boys.  What I found as an entertaining feature was that the actors didn’t merely serve as actors and dancers; they also participated in creating the music, whether it was with the tambourines or by stomping their feet.

The Scottsboro Boys is an experience unlike any other.  It is an exhilarating and creative combination of acting, music, and even comedy, which exhibits the story of a group of innocent young men who deal with America’s tainted justice system of the past.  The Scottsboro Boys is definitely a must see show for all types of viewers.

Taken from: http://bbbblogger.wordpress.com/2010/10/04/step-right-up-and-meet-the-scottsboro-boys/

I think it was no accident that the first thing to catch my eye upon reaching my seat for the performance of The Scottsboro Boys was a messy mountain of chairs. Some were upside down, some protruding out of the pile, I was confused as to why the set was this way and scared that they would all fall over. This fear ended up sticking with me throughout the entire play. The overly simplistic set was meant for viewers to pay more attention to the acting, but I think it had the opposite effect on me. I was on the edge of my seat when two or three chairs served as the only base for a train made of a wooden plank, hoping that it would support their weight when they jumped and shook the plank. The chairs served multiple different functions and were the only prop to make a jail cell, a solitary confinement box, a courtroom, a bus stop, and a train. Yet I could not forget that they were chairs, and was astounded when the sets did not fall apart the more they were interacted with by the characters. One example that comes to mind is when one of the boys vehemently shakes an upside down chair resting on a right side up chair as an attempt to open the door, I could not believe that the chairs went back to their original position and did not fall over.

Seating arrangements aside, I appreciated the performance because of the pure talent of the actors and the vision behind it. It was an interesting choice to make all but one cast member black, and some black actors dress as white lawyers or white women; I liked that it stayed true to the minstrel tradition. It also gave a subtle but important message of how the racism that prevailed in these times is fundamentally stupid and the  cast members showed that we’re all really the same regardless of color. The mostly upbeat feel of the play and the accompanying songs made this serious and awkward topic much more bearable and easy to watch and talk about. Given the context of the very sad story about the 9 boys who were imprisoned under a false accusation of the rape of two white woman, one would never expect to be smiling, laughing, and watching a magnificant lightshow and dancing that happened during the electric chair song. It was an unexpected but warmly welcome surprise. The characters of Mr. Bones and Mr. Tambo waddled around stage and spoke so ridiculously that you couldn’t  help but laugh at them. Their inadequacies also showed the fallacies in the concept of white supremacy, as the Scottsboro boys were portrayed as much more thoughtful and smarter. Haywood’s character was seen the most of a 9 boys, and I think he did an excellent job at representing them all when speaking of the injustices he was being faced with.

http://assets.nydailynews.com/img/2010/03/11/alg_scottsboro_boys.jpg

In the early 1900s, racism was a looming issue in the South. African Americans were segregated from the Whites and were treated very differently. As a controversial issue in the past and still sometimes in the present, many people have been reluctant to bring up the issue in such a public way. Sure, there are textbooks that have sections we must read in history class that talk about the Jim Crow laws and segregation in the 1900s, but these little excerpts from the textbooks do not capture the issue of racism the way The Scottsboro Boys did. Some people find racism a difficult topic to talk about, but Susan Stroman’s directing made it both informative and enjoyable to viewers.

Ironically enough, for a time period when Whites dominated the South, there was only one White male, John Cullum in the cast who played the roles of interlocutor and the judge and governor of Alabama. The rest of the cast was all African American men and a single African American woman. The musical starts off with a minstrel show form of entertainment, with the bright, blinking lights and the characters dancing around ready to show the audience a good time. John Cullum reminds the viewers that this is a serious subject matter they are about to dive into and tells the audience to brace themselves for a journey back to the time when nine Black men were accused of raping two white women on a Southern Railway line going from Chattanooga to Memphis, Tennessee.

Throughout the play, Mr. Bones and Mr. Tambo, played by Colman Domingo and Forrest McClendon, present a comic relief that is much needed considering the topic that is presented in the musical. With exaggerated accents and unnatural waddling around the stage, these characters present a type of irony for viewers; played by two African American men, these White characters are presented more as clowns than authoritative figures.

Ken Billington, the man behind the lighting design, did a fantastic job with manipulating different colored lights to parallel the mood of each scene. From the sunset shades during the “Commencing in Chattanooga” musical number, to the special bar filter to replicate the light coming in from barred windows in a jail cell, Billington made every scene credible and realistic. The use of simple every-day objects such as chairs and wooden planks were a clever addition to staying thrifty while encouraging the audience to expand their imagination to visualize the train cars, the jail cell, and the judge’s podium, just to name a few.

What I found most fascinating was the Lady that was in the background of the entire musical. From the start of the musical, we see a woman sitting down as the sounds of cars pass by and think she is a mere prop to what is to come later in the musical. However, she remains in every scene, silently watching and standing around, making expressions of shock, sadness, and sympathy for these nine men. Stroman did an excellent job tying her into the story at the very end with the diary written by one of the Scottsboro Boys. At the end of the musical, Stroman reveals to us that the Lady is actually Rosa Parks, inspired by the history written in that diary to stand up to the White bus driver who tells her to move to the back of the bus. The cast and the people responsible for making the musical such a success deserves high praise for both entertaining and informing the audience of the past in the 1930s.

http://www.deepsouthmag.com/?p=2220

Knowing the plot of Scottsboro Boys, I was not expecting the energy and humor the show started off with. The sad story of nine innocent black men in Alabama being accused of raping two white women suggested a somber performance to come. However, the show opened up with two men dressed in frivolous red suits, who revealed themselves to be minstrel men. They were soon joined by the nine Scottsboro boys who performed an upbeat song and dance routine to start off the night.

The costumes of the Scottsboro boys were very simple and appropriate for the time period. I did not appreciate their costumes in prison however, where they were all dressed in the same white outfits. It made it too difficult for me to distinguish between the men, especially since I was not close enough to the stage to see their distinct facial features. Perhaps the point was for them to all look the same, as this is likely how the Southern law viewed them. However I personally appreciated the characters more when I could discern between them, such as the boy who loved reading and writing. I could point him out by the glasses he wore, but when the characters were all wearing the same clothing I could no longer identify them by distinct clothing markers.

Another interesting aspect of The Scottsboro Boys was the lack of attachment between the characters. One would expect that their ordeal and time spent together would result in a deep bond between the men, but they seemed to have a very limited emotional connection. One of the boys even repeatedly tried to put the blame on his cellmates in an effort to save his own life. There was an obvious bond between the two brothers, but that had existed before their arrest. Other than that, the most outstanding interaction between the men seemed to be when Haywood, played by Joshua Henry, was taught to read and write by the one literate boy in the group. I believe this disconnect added a more realistic element to the story.

A major component of this show was satirizing extremely sensitive subjects, such as rape and lynching. Though this has offended people to the point of protesting outside the theatre I thought it was a new and interesting way of portraying such a dark time in American history. I have learned so much about black history in school over the past few years but it has never been in this context. I had also never really heard of minstrel shows and I think that the topics of minstrelsy and the Scottsboro trial were combined in a clever way. The show also did not target one specific group in its mockery. The minstrel men poked fun at everyone, from the Southern white women to the sheriff to the Jewish lawyer from New York.

The ending to the show was extremely powerful and chilling. The woman who had silently remained in the background throughout the show, revealed herself to be Rosa Parks and as she refused to move to the back of the bus the show literally ended with a bang as the lights went out. I liked that the makers of Scottsboro boys used this woman as a way of linking the different historical points of black history. It showed that the trial of the Scottsboro boys affected individuals later in history, which added a warm feeling of hope to the show, despite the many horrors and injustices it presented.

Though The Scottsboro Boys made light of some very serious topics, it did so in a way that was original and effective, without being offensive. I think this show opens up the door to a whole new category of Broadway. It presents a dark time in history with a twist of humor and music, which will hopefully grip audiences, like it did me.

Photo credit to Rosegg of The Daily News. http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/music/2010/03/10/2010-03-10_the_scottsboro_boys_new_fred_ebb_musical_is_based_on_alabama_race_case_.html

The only wobbliness in this show was my legs, shaking from nerves because I was seated so high up in the balcony. Other than that, The Scottsboro Boys struck me as an extraordinarily balanced production.

Some scenes tugged at the heart (like when Haywood Patterson, the most outspoken of the nine Scottsboro boys, is thrown into solitary confinement), others poke fun at harsh realities the Black teenagers struggle with (when the youngest of the crew asks so innocently and genuinely what “rape” is, or when one boy relays his account of his cousin being lynched). Though it’s not the kind of musical that will lift the whole audience out of their chairs and have them dancing in the aisles, there is a certain joviality that left me tapping my feet in my own seat way up in the balcony.

Perhaps the greatest thing about this musical is that it presented this most delicate topic with extraordinary care and great talent. The Scottsboro Boys, a most controversial legal case that stands as a symbol of bigotry and racial stereotypes, sits precariously on an onstage seesaw. The actors teeter-totter with keeping the show entertaining and conveying the sense of gravity the topic deserves. In that respect, the directors of Scottsboro do a superb job. They leave most of the racism up to the cast members to relay through speech, and the amusement is mostly accomplished through dance, song, and occasional jokes. Racist comments are balanced with funny scenes to lighten the atmosphere. The actors really set the crowd in motion, causing theatergoers’ “haha”s or “ooo”s. At times, I felt that familiar “oooooh” like OUCH! pierce through the crowd. And at times, I heard laughter. After all, this is a musical about battling racism.

What is most ironic about Scottsboro is that it is a minstrel. “Black-face” has a long tradition in American entertainment as a most effective means of keeping things in perspective, especially appropriate for this Broadway show. Though by the 1950s minstrelsy had nearly disappeared, today it has become a symbol of the past. Scottsboro is a reminder of the harsh racism that existed and perhaps continues to exist on a lesser scale.

What a great show!

Over the years the issue of race has become one that has been best tiptoed around and when needed, swept under the rug. It’s a topic whose history is as unpleasant as any other possible conversation piece, with perhaps the exception of some heinous crime. It’s amazing then to consider that the newly opened Scottsboro Boys on Broadway at the Lyceum Theatre attempts to tackle two birds with one stone as it recounts the alleged rapes and subsequent convictions of nine black teenage males on a train ride down to Memphis in search of work.

The fictional account would, as one might guess work best as a blockbuster Hollywood drama, a medium in which the emotions of all involved could be best captured; it is surprising however to consider that the harrowing tale was most recently adapted by writer David Thompson (‘Chicago’) as a musical in the form of a minstrel show, a traditionally offensive form of early American entertainment. Utilizing twelve main male actors, several of whom played multiple parts, the Susan Stroman (‘The Producers’) directed play relied entirely on the belief of the audience that the performance taking place onstage was in fact one that was taking place in the early half of the 20^th century. Employing utilitarian procedures as one might expect from a ‘minstrel show,’ perhaps the greatest achievement of the night was the display of the set, which consisted of seemingly little more than ten or eleven metal chairs. Once paired with sounds from the crew, and arranged by the show’s cast, the chairs transformed from a train, to a jail cell, to a courtroom and any other setting needed for the plot in between. As simple as it may seem, it could not have been easy for Beowulf Boritt to put together conceptually let alone concretely as displayed on stage. The barebones set also allowed for no intermissions, and a full focus on the events unraveling onstage.

The production itself left little to be desired as far as acting and singing were concerned. Each and every actor played their particular parts to the extent at which the script could allow them. In a show in which there were twelve main characters on stage nearly the entire time, it would seem a difficult task to have to choose those whose performance exceeded the rest. It wasn’t. Joshua Henry’s portrayal of Haywood Patterson, the rising ‘leader’ of the nine, was by and large much more in tune with his character than any other actor playing one of the ‘Boys.’ Perhaps this is in part due to the fact that Henry was featured several times in multiple songs; regardless, his portrayal of the angst and anguish that his character faced should have been the consistent emotion throughout the entire play, certainly not the exception. It is unfortunate then to consider Colman Domingo and Forrest McClendon, the two actors that played Mr. Bones, and Mr. Tambo respectively.  Both played their parts superbly and were my two favorite actors in the play. Yet, it is their two roles, both essential to the minstrel theme that prevented the play from making any advances in emotional progress. They were both extremely comical, which in it of itself isn’t a bad thing, but when the seriousness of the storyline reserves little room for such humor, it’s easy to question the intended direction of the play.

If the play’s humor left any mixed feelings on the production, the nature of it being a musical only added to the confusion. The songs, while well performed seemed to come at points in the play in which the dialogue could no longer sustain its importance; considering the material that the collaborators had to work with, one would have hoped that it would have been the other way around: with the dialogue the focus, not the music.

Ultimately though, it comes back to the initial problem that the play’s genre presented. It certainly had its share of comedic moments, and well-done vocals, but what seemed to be lacking was the awareness of the gravity of the story that was being told. The writers though seemed to hit on one issue, if only circuitously, and that was poor treatment of the blacks both in and out of the minstrel shows, as evidenced by the repeated calls from the interlocutor to give “just one more cakewalk,” (a racially-charged dance) a request persistently denied. All in all, the show itself was enjoyable, but by the end, I could not help but notice an uncomfortable feeling in the pit in my stomach.

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Are horrifying circumstances less horrifying when told to the tune of flighty banjos and predictable bass lines? It seems that in the musical The Scottsboro Boys, music and lyric writers John Kander and Fred Ebb were trying to find out just how much contradiction and unsettling revelation an audience can take willingly—and it seems that they’ve hit it right on the mark.

The show’s controversial subject matter may have been enough for some. Starting with the utilization of the minstrel show form (one of the most racist forms of theatre in American history), The Scottsboro Boys begins a true tale of brutal injustice with a thoroughly sardonic glimpse into the continual presence of racism, even as the events that the minstrel group portrays are portrayed in past-tense. The group of men creating this show-within-a-show—not incidentally consisting of all African-Americans, only led by a stereotypical “Southern Gentleman” who continually interrupts their heartfelt connection with the story—brings a relevance that makes the audience wonder just how removed the characters—as well as they themselves–are from the injustice that this story narrates.

Despite the condescending yells for interruptive dance routines and joyous distraction, the men continue on to weave a tale in which the audience finds it harder and harder to separate delight from disgust—a thoroughly unsettling concept, if it weren’t for the efforts of the composers to throw in “happy” chords and joyous percussion at every turn. Pieces such as “Electric Chair” are prime examples of this: in this piece, a fright-stricken boy is carried through the terrors of the chair that he will likely meet, as the tempo increases and the musicians frantically play their assigned major-mode parts. The juxtaposition of fear and joy doesn’t end here, though, as the once comically White jail-guards—played by other members of the Black minstrel group, of course—prance around in a bizarre display of joy over the imminent demise of the guilty-until-proven-innocent inmates, surrounded by dead bodies who re-animate just in time to re-enact their moment of truth under the strobe lights.

And as if this fantastic display of fear and exultation just wasn’t enough, we are often reminded that this story is not just a story: although assuredly less musical, this happened. Seventy-some-odd years ago, these nine boys underwent the abhorrent events of this garishly spectacular musical—a revelation that is not easy to dismiss, especially as the musical reaches its finale. Here, the audience is subjected to possibly the most unsettling part of the writers’ insight: here, all African-American members of the cast are portrayed using blackface makeup, a thoroughly grotesque representation that makes clear that even at the time that their show-within-a-show was being done, these actors were far from escaping the oppression that they so detested. Still, as the lights flash and the music continues to crescendo, the audience finds itself witnessing a total about-face in the show’s direction, and assignment of power—a tool that allows the musical to become more than just a revelation for an audience to undergo: The Scottsboro Boys, with all its glamour and terror, pizzazz and disgust, becomes an example with which the audience feels obliged to do more than just reflect upon…

No small feat for some banjos, building-block chairs, and a small group of men wiping some paint off of their faces.

The topic of racism is often a subject that is far too racy to talk about. Although, it is agreed upon that we should not forget the past, it sometimes come to such a point where we will not talk about it at all due to the amount of emotion connected to it. However, Scottsboro Boys introduces the topic of racism with a certain Broadway twist that appeals to a wide variety of audiences. In the end we are presented with a play that reaches the roots of many of the issues during the 1930s, while maintaining our attention through a musical and comical form.

One of the few things I noted when I walked into the play was the variety of people that were sitting there watching. It goes to show that this play connects to a wide array of cultures and people. There were african americans, koreans, chinese, hispanics, and caucasian. Not only was Scottsboro Boys a play that appeals to the public, but it works on educating everyone of the past. This aspect of the play appealed to me the most because it is rare that the general audience comes together for one play. We are able to tell that Scottsboro Boys aimed at educating rather than pleasing by the way the story unfolded. For example near the end of the play each character gave different skits of true events. They even mentioned lynching.

It is interesting to note that for a play that took place in the South where the white held all the power, there was only one white person throughout the entire play. John Collum played a minimal part in Scottsboro Boys, but his presence is magnified due to the fact that he is the only white person in the play. The director of the play seems to be drawing attention to the idea that this is not the white man’s story, but the story from the perspective of the Scottsboro boys, in fact many of the white characters are played by two people.

Colman Domingo and Forrest McClendon played most if not all of the roles of white characters. Domingo and McClendon played the jokingly awkward Sherriff and deputy, Mr. Bones and Mr. Tambo. They both did an amazing job portraying the two officers of the law as nothing more than a couple of ridiculous people. Many of the officers played by black counterparts introduced a much needed comic relief as the audience saw them waddle around. It further serves to provoke thought in the audience members. Many times throughout the play I thought that the white southerners were nothing more than a bunch of cowardly losers, only protected by the color of their skins. This play also portrays northern whites similar to southern whites, indicating that perhaps the whites in the play were all the same no matter where they came from.

All in all, this play was truly a unique play that serves to send a message and entertain the audience. It does not matter whether you are sitting at the highest seat or seeing the actors face to face, you will be mesmerized by the acting, the sight, and the songs.