2005: When a Man Loves a Woman by Solomon F Caudle and Kabu Okai Davies

When a Man Loves a Woman by Solomon F Caudle and Kabu Okai Davies.  African Globe Theatre Works, Newark N.J., New York USA, directed by Solomon Caudle.  National Multicultural Festival at The Street Theatre February 10 - 12, 8pm.

    This is a theatre-in-education play for young adults.  Its central message is don't let physical attraction put safe sex out of mind.  One mistake can give you AIDs. 

    Second, don't let real love be denied for the sake of one mistake.  Third, don't be a manipulating, drug-taking living-a-lie asshole, because you cause disaster for the people you influence and infect.  Literally.

    The City of Newark's publicity talks of the "Renaissance" since 1980 after the city's decline in the mid-20th Century, but African Globe shows the African-Americans in the bar and music scene needing to learn to deal with the present-day scourge of AIDs, which infects women as much as men in a culture where men too often rely on sexual conquest to establish their status.

    From the point of view of serious dramatic art, the storyline and spoken dialogue is too simple and quite predictable.  The play opts for a positive, even sentimental, ending for the reunited husband and wife, even in the knowledge that she will die at some point from AIDs.  The death of the asshole is almost laughable.

    But I found the use of singing quite fascinating.  American popular forms of music become deeply felt expressions of despair and love when African-Americans improvise, harmonise and take their voices to extremes in a style that belongs to their culture.  This was not imitation or mere entertainment.  And so I understood that this play, in its inner city Newark context, is designed to gets its message through directly to the hearts of its young African-American audience.

    Don't go to see When a Man Loves a Woman as a commercial entertainment, but see it as an opportunity to experience this culture.  Our own AIDs and drug-taking are hidden under Canberra's bush-capital superstructure, just as they are hidden in the "New" Newark.  But we don't have the African-American voices to sing out the tragedy and the hope.  The Multicultural Festival allows us this experience.

© Frank McKone, Canberra