Nowadays, what does it mean to be an artist? It isn’t just enough to put pen to a pad and create something entertaining. Anyone with the smallest of degrees can formulate that. For Usher in A Strange Loop, the art he wants to create is at odds with the world around him. His show is, as the opening song suggests, “a portrait of a portrait of a portrait of a Black queer face.” Has the story lost the plot, or is there some truth speaking through in the layers of subtext? Based on Michael R. Jackson’s time as an usher for The Lion King, he uses the layers to comment not only on his life, but on what value art has as catharsis. Is there a way to make reality more palatable and use it to heal one’s trauma? As the next two hours will suggest, it’s not that easy unless you have the right mentality.
When entering The Ahmanson Theater for the latest stop on A Strange Loop’s national tour, one will be greeted with the first piece to unravel. While the show makes considerable reference to Liz Phair (including the title), her work doesn’t feature at all in the show. In fact, there’s a joke that Usher’s original production was to be a musical based on her work but he couldn’t afford the rights. However, audiences in the theater with a keen ear will know that the preceding 30-40 minutes to curtains will have been listening to Phair. In general, this isn’t meaningful, but for Jackson it speaks to a greater subtext.
Usher is not the conventional protagonist. Along with being fat, Black, and queer, he struggles with a sense of identity. Along with passion for theater, he has a soft spot for embracing his “inner white girl.” It seems contradictory to be in love with artists like Tori Amos, and yet it speaks to what his goals are. Why do they bet to be accepted for pouring their heart into a song while he’s expected to be a subservient usher to theater? When will he get to express himself as he truly wants to be seen, especially when he’s not the poster child for any big hit show?
There are many reasons that Jackson’s journey to winning the Tony is unprecedented and not likely to happen often. The easiest way to describe Usher is that he’s self-involved. The loop in question is intentionally a frustrating form of ambiguity. Even as he gives looks into his personal life, the actors playing his family alter them scene to scene. They go from being dominant forces to caricatures of a Tyler Perry spin-off show. For audiences not familiar with the culture (or simply older than Millennial), the constant winking and self-consciousness may be off-putting more than Usher’s way too candid journey. As the opening scene points out, anal sex is involved. It’s a joke that comes to have more nuanced meaning, but starts with certain tolerance for uncomfortable art.
Still, credit to the cast for delivering a musical that is at times shocking and vulgar within its hilarious premise. While there’s a lot of fantastic dance numbers, Malachi McCaskill’s Usher doesn’t have conventional moves. He dances about as well as Fanny Brice while his accompanied actors (labeled Thought 1-6) tend to grace the stage, emerging from doorframes and providing vicious one-liners meant to undermine Usher’s confidence. Even as he forces himself to put a smile on, he’s left listening to something called his “Daily Self-Loathing” while singing about how today will be the start of something better.
The audience knows immediately that Usher wants to be a radical. He wants to make art that speaks to a greater purpose. Given that Jackson uses The Lion King as his backdrop, it comments on how the Black experience is often commodified by major companies and, until later adaptations, was voiced by white actors. Given how he treats his parents both as loathsome forces that undermine his potential for being homosexual, Jackson manages to depict decades of turmoil in a simple exchange. It’s one that feels familiar, especially in his need to please them simply because they paid for his schooling.
The staging is phenomenal and stripped down. Because this show exists largely (if entirely) inside his head, the barrenness becomes an abstract canvas. The thoughts have constant costume changes, playing anything that comes to Usher’s mind. Given that this is a story of the self against a larger culture, they play everything from concepts like financial and racial struggles to family members and, in one rip-roaring scene, the entirety of Black history. The unexpectedness is part of the show’s appeal. Despite the appalling nature of certain moments, Usher’s worldview feels so recognizable that it avoids sliding into isolation.
Even if this is yet another aspirational musical about a young artist done in a painfully meta way, it escapes feeling cliché because of how honest it is. For a medium welcoming of any voice, nobody has graced a national tour quite like Usher. He’s actively rebelling against Tyler Perry storytelling and religion as a concept. He’s fighting his own inferiority complexes and, during a number called “Exile in Gayville,” turns online dating into a comical clashing of lights as back-up singers sing a pattering of “Block!” This show is so in the moment that it may become dated by the time Gen-Alpha graduate high school, but it speaks to how the 21st century has felt for queer-identifying people up to this point. One can hope that it gets better.
This is a one-act show that runs for two hours straight and can leave the actors as well as the audience feeling sweaty. To the actors’ credit, there’s a fluidity to everything that keeps anything from feeling tedious. However, it’s also indicative of what an intermission likely would’ve done. The show’s candidness isn’t for everyone and having even a moment to breathe will make some nervously approach the aisles. Who wants to be stuck with a man that is struggling to figure out life to such an embarrassing degree?
That is why it’s not likely to be a show that exists for years like Hamilton or Hadestown. This national tour may not be its last, but may be for the immediate future. It’s a conflicting show that only has one radio-friendly song. The rest feel like open wounds in need of censoring to timid ears. It’s not a very marketable show. A third act song features a gospel number called “AIDS is God’s Punishment.” While the show responsibly uses it to discuss character development, on its own it is jarring. Also, given the rising tide of anti-LGBTQIA+ rhetoric in America, it’s not a show that will likely play in more conservative regions. As it stands, it makes Rent play like Mary Poppins.
For those who can take its rich, vibrant storytelling, it’s a fantastic night of theater. It’s a story that asks one to listen carefully to every word Usher says and understand his plight. This is a revolutionary perspective because of how raw and honest it is. Amid the torment, McCaskill finds humor. Amid humor, he finds the pain that he tries to confront but finds it difficult to do anything with. Everything just circles around in a strange loop, forever bothering him. Is the ending satisfying? If this review has convinced the reader of Usher’s directness, then the answer can be found there.
Even then, it’s a story that is worth telling just for how against the grain it is. In an age where queer voices are deserving more of listening to, Jackson is giving one that is loud and proud but also very confused. It’s one more reflective of how society exists. While Usher tries to make everything into an upbeat musical, the audience is aware of the charade. How can someone with an inner white girl be authentically Black? The complexities of identity shine through in this and paint a portrait for the modern age. It’s unapologetic and while that may hurt its accessibility, those it finds will more than likely defend it with every fiber of their being.
A Strange Loop is one of the rare Tony-winning musicals that feels like glimpsing into something new and exciting. This is a show lost in the modern age of self-awareness. Even in a time where duality is actively encouraged, Usher’s many directions aren’t that easy to put into a box. What can he do to make a story that will capture hearts as much as The Lion King? The answer is much more complicated than anything this show comes up with. Still, Usher’s self-expression in its rumination says a lot within its own strange abstraction. It gives the viewer a much more satisfying experience than if it ended more concretely. This is the mind of an artist in search of meaning. One day he’ll figure it out, but first he needs to see past himself.
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