Darren Canady’s for…girls murders ‘Death of the Author’ in cold blood
Photo by Micah Thompson
In mid-May, Charlotte Street/KC Public Theatre did a quick run of performances around a new stage play from Kansas-based writer (and KU professor) Darren Canady. It was directed by Teisha M. Bankston, whose prolific work has helped define this era of KC theater, and the small cast was populated with familiar faces who have been singled out for praise in previous Pitch reviews.
Despite being in a very limited run, and catching this during a final dress rehearsal, all the pieces were in the right place to know that two hours of a random Wednesday night would be well rewarded. Everyone involved has earned my trust and support repeatedly—even if this was going to be a little rough, how could it be anything less than a solid show?
After the cast bowed around 10 p.m. and I drove home, I spent no time at all sitting in my thoughts about the production. The review was done, ready to publish in the morning, and I was satisfied that it gave the staging credit where credit was due. The next morning, I deleted the draft ten minutes before it was set to run. I wrote a new review two days later—then equally vaporized it. For a few weeks now, I’ve drafted this reaction from scratch five times, and at some point, it just has to be delivered.
So here it is, just bluntly and in temporary finality: for…girls is the best work of theater I’ve seen since moving to Kansas City. It’s an original work of transcendent meta-criticism with brilliant scripting and unparalleled performances from a set of infurating characters, and at this point I don’t think it’s a stretch to propose that for….girls is successful in a manner that haunts me. I want to pull it apart in a lab to study it on a subatomic level.
Equally, I’m fucking furious that I can’t bully you into coming out to see it tonight. You should have the option. I should have the option to make you choose the option. I would drive you.
There’s a summary and some assorted thoughts to follow here, but the general takeaway is that for…girls should be running every night, somewhere, until we can solve for x.
Photo by Micah Thompson
for…girls follows theater director Ty Derricks (Terraye Watson)—a man who has made his reputation on staging iconoclastic, antagonistic versions of established works—as he brings his most challenging creative subversion to the stage. A repertory company’s New Stages program gives a platform to Derricks’ vision of Ntozake Shange’s For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When The Rainbow Is Enuf: one with a reduced cast and employing only white women.
Photo by Micah Thompson
Miriam Adler (Dawn Youngs) is the theater’s creative head, whose Northwestern education has not adequately prepared her for the undertaking of pushing back on any of the ideas in Derricks’ work, so with deference to an enfant terrible she goes about funding and platforming this re-imagining with few questions. Most of our time is spent on stage with the three actresses hired to tackle this show [Ann (Briana Van Deusen) Susan (Kelly Main) Becky (Alisa Lynn)] and their increasing uncertainty in the face of NDAs, creative dissociation, and the pressure of a gamble no one involved can afford to lose.
In a parallel narrative, a former friend of Derricks named Sheryl (Haley Johnson) directly addresses the audience to deconstruct how the messy fingerprints of theater culture are decimating one of the landmark representations in media for generations of Black women.
Canady’s razor-sharp satire proves to be the perfect vehicle for reckoning with the aftershocks of a country where so many proclaimed their support for the Black Lives Matter movement at its launch—only to be the sort of allies who pre-ordered an Ibram X. Kendi book but never bothered to read it. In a space where performative solidarity clashes with sincerity, the principal ideals dismantle each other across the length of the show. Veering less towards The Producers, and more into the realm of Spike Lee’s Bamboozled (2000), the flagrantly foul concept at the heart of the re-imagining is less about shock for the attention economy and more about the unwillingness of those in power to engage thoughtfully or critically when there exists a means to capitalize instead.
I want to say “The heart of the show lives in…” and then highlight which character’s perspective and stances drive for…girls to excel into this space that keeps one foot in the meta-cerebral and another firmly planted in divine comedy—but I worry I’d deprive you the experience of having the show gut-check you if I lay out all the motivations.
For what it’s worth, I found that the device of framing this around three white actresses attempting to engage with the production and foundational text to be a massive success versus other media that has tried to grapple with equivalent cultural divides. If this were a book club or a backyard party or a night out at a bar, and the same ideas were being batted around with as much clumsy clamor, at some point, you’d just wonder why the parties involved simply refused to walk away. By making it a full-time job for working performers, mixed with the space for self-indulgence that creatives can insist upon, it forces the hand of all involved: the only way out is through. The only way to opening night is cross-litigating concepts of artistic ownership into oblivion and back, hoping each shot in the dark won’t ricochet.
This is, in the end, one of those reviews to bookmark for later. When for…girls comes back around, you must make time for it. I will drive you if you want.
