GOOD BLACK
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By the mid-60s, comedians like Dick Gregory and Godfrey Cambridge were succeeding still further in making blacks seem just another side of the many-faceted creature called humanity. Of course, a comedian who enjoyed great popularity among black and white audiences at the time was Bill Cosby, who told stories of his childhood–which could have been anybody’s childhood. Budding transculturalism does much to explain how, circa 1966, college students in northern Wisconsin, many of whom had never seen an actual black man, could nonetheless recite entire Cosby albums.
Rob Penny’s Good Black, currently playing at the ETA Creative Arts Foundation, draws on the same sources of delight. It’s a hugely funny play, of course, well crafted and superbly executed. But dispelling any reminders that this is a “black play” are the universality of the conflicts and the emphasis on human rather than cultural values.
The designers have created an onstage environment so lifelike it looks as if we could move into it tomorrow, right down to the iron skillet crowning Dalejean’s stove. And Woodie King Jr. directs with perfect comic pacing, no easy feat since the theater seats 200 and the laughs can stop the action for several minutes at a time.
