Soft Review: Young Black Men, Gently Pointed Toward Liberation – The New York Times

Black manhood is envisioned as a delicate garden full of blossoms and wilts in Donja R. Loves compelling new play Soft, receiving its world premiere at MCC Theater in Manhattan.

Adam Riggs classroom set, encircled by vibrant flowers and audience members, lulls you into a sense of tranquillity before the clang of prison bars announces the start of the play, which takes place in a youth correctional facilitys English class. Despite the distress at the heart of these young mens circumstances, Love convincingly offers a sense of hope, showing how outside encouragement and a commitment to self-improvement are crucial to their liberation.

A phenomenally grounded Biko Eisen-Martin as Mr. Isaiah, the facilitys English teacher, helps the Whitney White-directed production skirt the trope of the saintly educator who brings out the best in his pupils. With sparse sentimentality but firm understanding, his performance creates space for Loves larger themes of redemption in a system set up to keep young Black men locked away.

As the play begins, Isaiah, conveying hes not much older than his late teen students through daps and earnest hype-manning, is impressed by their recent essays on Othello, particularly Kevins (Shakur Tolliver) observation that the abuse and isolation felt by Shakespeares tragic moor are not so different from the circumstances that landed them inside here.

Some, like hotheaded Bashir (Travis Raeburn) and the extravagantly queer Dee (Essence Lotus), maintain that their crimes were victimless borne out of a necessity to survive. Others, like the easygoing crack dealer Jamal (a fantastic Dario Vazquez), have no such illusions. Eddie (Ed Ventura, in the productions most physical role), meanwhile, is simply happy to be away from his abusive home.

Isaiahs own past includes a brush with the law, as he is somewhat threateningly reminded by his boss, Mr. Cartwright (Leon Addison Brown): Were all where we are because of somebodys good graces. If the students must turn to Isaiah for approval and mercy, the teacher himself is resigned to Cartwrights godlike status within the facility, his voice periodically issuing commandments through speakers.

Caught in the double bind of toxic masculinity and a racist revolving-door carceral system, where does the buck stop? When one student escapes through suicide, his close friend (or was he more?) Antoine, played by a simmering Dharon Jones, opts out of the bind by refusing to speak. Heavy with guilt, Isaiah tries to have his students verbalize their discontent, resulting in (sometimes contrived) arguments, and physical fights incredibly choreographed by UnkleDaves Fight-House.

Instructed by Loves script to feature no onstage crying, the production finds instead catharsis through Whites direction, attentive to the characters physicality and complex relationships to one another. Qween Jeans costumes cleverly locate a chic aesthetic somewhere between orange jumpsuits and athleisure. (How the flamboyant Dee cuts up and alters his outfits is a charming nod to queer creativity).

All is in service to Loves belief that hope springs eternal, if not here, then in our next lives, as graciously evoked by Riggs simple, almost schoolyard-like set and Mauricio Escamillas harp-heavy original music during an ethereal coda. In earlier plays like Sugar in Our Wounds and one in two, Love has demonstrated an admirable commitment to thoughtfully depict Black queerness in all its forms. The new work broadens the canvas, reminding us (in the words of Tennessee Williams) that we are all children in a vast kindergarten, trying to spell Gods name with the wrong alphabet blocks.

Love doesnt lean on such grandiose statements here, but he powerfully conveys a paradoxical modern malaise a sense of unsupervised supervision, where it feels were both left to our own devices and under someones watchful eye. His Soft is a lovely encouragement to let our guards down, and leave the hardness to our hardships themselves.

SoftThrough June 26 at MCC Theater, Manhattan; mcctheater.org. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes.

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Soft Review: Young Black Men, Gently Pointed Toward Liberation - The New York Times