The Goodman Theatre, 170 E. Dearborn St., Chicago, In association with Alliance Theatre of Atlanta, is currently presenting the world premiere of BUST An Afrocurrentist Play by Pulitzer Prize finalist Zora Howard, expertly directed by Tony award nominee Lileana Blain-Cruz, through May 18, 2025 in the Albert Theater.
The play is very very funny, almost frighteningly so given the underlying subject matter. It’s also perfectly acted, shocking, meaningful, and thought provoking, all in the context of great stagesets and superb special effects.
Featuring Mark Bedard, Cecil Blutcher, Caroline Stephanie Clay, Bernard Gilbert, Caitlin Hargraves, Jorge Luna, Victoria Omoregie, Keith Randolph Smith, Ray Anthony Thomas, Ivan Cecil Walks and Renika Williams-Blutcher. This is a particularly well-balanced cast, spatially and internally displayed in the moveable (up and down as well as side to side) cubist stage sets cleverly designed by Matt Saunders.
The performance is an immaculately staged, intricately conceived and hell-raising address to the agony of institutionalized racism in Huntsville, Alabama and the limberlost. In perfect American rapster/hiphop Black English, an all too familiar white Southern cop black blowaway takes place. An elderly man is busted and shot in plain view of a family of 3 relatives, an older married couple and their teenage nephew. But the victim doesn’t just bleed out in the driveway. He is propelled into another sphere of being. And it is in that spiritual someplace that the lessons of a life lived long in pain are ultimately imparted from Age to Youth.
The plot shifts from collective black family horror at the shooting to a grandmotherly/wifely maternal instinct to protect. When white tyranny next plays itself out in a white staffed school upon a too too smart black cohort of students, we get to experience the most vivid ballet of moves and symphony of language from the kids as they band together to stand up for their rights. And another volley of gunfire ensues. And another bit of magically realistic transference takes place when nephew goes up in smoke.
While the alternately rage and fear filled culprit cops- an apparent skinhead and fearful Hispanic- run around trying to clean up their faux pas and deal with their goodoldboy relationship to authority, the cadre of students unites with the oldsters to make sense of the tragedy and find their center. Augmented by the relations in the “zone of disappearance,” the play melds before our eyes into an exploration of the ability of human beings to manage the effects of hatred.
Some viewers may be put off by the constant use of the “n” word. Used as a prefix or suffix to complex humorous lines, it was very effective at manipulating audience laughter at a verbal self-denigrating “habit” that is in no way funny; this was actually a brilliant device. A point could also be made that the white characters were caricatures of themselves- but that was the point; when one subsumes one’s responses to life under the oppressive mantle of toxic masculinity and authoritarianism, how can one expect to have any semblance of real responses to life?
Kudos to lighting designer Yi Zhao, special effects designer Jeremy Chernick, sound designer Mikaal Sulaiman, costume designer Dominique Fawn Hill, fight choreographer Rocio Mendez and all the production team members.
For information and tickets to all the fine shows at The Goodman Theatre, go to www.goodmantheatre.org
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