Why Black Men Die Young

Director, cast and tech crew demonstrate faultless clarity in the first half of the 90-minute drama, “Kill Move Paradise” through October 16 at the Next Act Theatre. They make essentially theatrical the concept of playwright James Ijames about the parade of black men who over the endless years have entered the netherworld – killed because they dared walk in a strange place, joke around with the wrong crowd or get stopped for a traffic violation.

In Ijames’ imagined space, there is a macabre version of a Noah’s Ark water slide that scoots the men down to their doom, a weird remote place where memories of the thousands who have passed hang on shelves (bikes, balls, books). Paper planes deliver the bad news, and a relentless teletype machine spews out the thousands of names that will join the first three men who climb over or through the slide for our amusement.

The lights flash, the sound rumbles and the three men engage in staring contests with the audience – friendly waves giving way to penetrating and then menacing stares. After all, we are the ones who have been watching this happen and may be judging from the sidelines.

Director Marti Gobel has started out with a great job. She shows total trust in her actors and their handling of silence. The first half seems dominated by silence as the three men howl, interact, stare, form personalities and slowly learn where they are. It’s a lesson of what can happen when good actors trust a good director.

They are joined by a fourth – just a teenager really, who doesn’t understand what the men around him intuitively know. He just wants to go home to mother. The men – fine veteran actors in Marques Causey, Ibraheem Farmer and particularly the angry unsettling ruffian among them, Dimonte Henning – tease his ignorance but also feel the pain they did in their own youth. Still his presence brings a strange new edge to their doom.

But a curious thing happens in this production. The first half creates the concept in a believable unsettling way and the selected Ijames dialogue emphasizes colorful, sometimes profane litanies, not talking directly about the netherworld, just imagining people trying to cope in all too human ways. In the second half the polemic side of the dialogue intrudes forcibly, and the audience starts feeling beat over the head rather than drawn in. The strong physical presence and chants become anticipated rather than revealing.

There are efforts – an amusing diatribe about all the Cosby shows and other TV themes that tried to make black life friendly. But director Gobel has already created such strong visual power that we hardly need the extended conclusions. Joseph Brown, Jr. may not yet act on par with the others, but he fulfills his purpose — the play’s too lengthy purpose — as the callow smart-aleck youngster added to the group.

There are so many names attached to the tech side in the program – lighting, production design, scenery and movement – that all should be complimented. The cast deserves singling out for how well they handle the gamut of fury, realization and acceptance.

The playwright has provided the powerful allegory – the visual representation of how we have neglected this American march to doom of Black men and boys. But director Gobel has realized the concept so vividly that we don’t need all the dialogue reinforcement the playwright inserts.

Kill Move Paradise Gallery

Dominique Paul Noth served for decades as film and drama critic, later senior editor for features at the Milwaukee Journal. You’ll find his blog here and here.