Saturated in hormones and harmonies, Shotgun Players' production of "Choir Boy," is a bracing entertainment, as endearing, self-serious, and gloriously florid as the blossoming minds of the teenage boarding school boys it portrays.
The 2012 drama by Tarell Alvin McCraney, best known as the screenwriter of "Moonlight," stylishly directed by Darryl V. Jones, focuses on the emerging personalities, sexualities, and ethical sensibilities of a sextet of young men who attend Drew Academy, a prestigious all-Black prep school where strict, well-intentioned codes of conduct create a surface tension barely strong enough to contain the roiling adolescent passions and confusions bubbling beneath it.
Tunes top tropes
The primary distinction between "Choir Boy" and most of the slightly soapy, single-sex academia genre (plays including "The Children's Hour," "Another Country," "History Boys,"; films released during McCraney's own youth, such as "Dead Poets Society," "Cider House Rules," and "School Ties") — beyond the fact that the primary characters are Black — is its thrilling incorporation of music (arranged by Jason Michael Webb) and dance (choreographed by Aejay Antonis Marquis).
The story's six teenage characters are all members of Drew's well-known choir, promoted by the school's board as a sort of hood ornament for fundraising and recruitment drives, a concrete manifestation of the school's standards for aesthetic, religious and disciplinary excellence.
But "Choir Boy" isn't a musical.
While some of the songs (largely gospel numbers, with a few diversions into more contemporary R&B, one of which is a gorgeously performed but dramaturgically too-on-the-nose rendition of New Edition's "Boys to Men") are diegetically integrated in the storyline, sung by the characters at choir concerts and rehearsals. Others are presented interstitially, between scenes, amplifying and embroidering upon the story's themes.
"Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child," for example, reflects the isolation felt by young men living away from home for the first time. "Rainbow Round My Shoulder" obliquely reinforces the braided sense of burden and extraordinariness that accompanies being a gay student in an institution that refuses to acknowledge the existence of homosexuality as anything but a sin.
While related to the play's narrative, the profound, resonant beauty of these gorgeous musical numbers expands upon and ultimately envelops the story itself. The self-serving motivations of individual characters are subsumed within the music's sense of communal transcendence.
Audience members who appreciated the cooperatively contrapuntal relationship of dialogue and music in the recent Broadway San Francisco touring production of "Girl from the North Country" will recognize a kindred spirit in "Choir Boy."
McCraney's daring construction — a highly engineered, slightly moralistic plot, elevated and carried within the greater good of musical cumulus — is a work of heartfelt genius. It pressures audiences to grapple with the clash-prone coexistence of well-meaning individuals and well-meaning institutions.
Ensemble excellence
A charismatic cast led by William Schmidt as Pharus, a musically gifted but self-aggrandizing gay student, is captivating from the first scene. Wesley Barker strikes a perfect balance of sweetness and strength as Pharus' straight, athletic roommate, AJ.
Miles Meckling makes Pharus' nemesis, Bobby, into more than a rote homophobe. Omar Stewart plays David, the most religiously devout student, with a cryptic air that allows audience members to be genuinely surprised by a plot turn. And Chachi Delgado, an unsung utility player in many a Bay Area production, takes advantage of a worthy showcase for his limber physicality and tender baritone.
The ensemble is so sharp and engaging with its line-readings and scene work that one becomes fully absorbed in the plotted melodrama from the get-go, only realizing the show's layered conceptual complexity after it's over.
"Choir Boy" is terrific as you're watching it, and then, it gets better.
'Choir Boy,' through Oct. 25. $28-$35. Shotgun Players' Ashby Stage. 1901 Ashby Ave., Berkeley. www.shotgunplayers.org
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