The Aggies for 2019
A year in performance where Black drama ruled
The cast of Ntozake Shange’s “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf,” revived this year in a production directed by Leah
C. Gardiner and choreographed by Camille A. Brown.
BY DAVID NOH
One quality essential
to the art of the great
Agnes Moorehead, for
whom these annual
Aggie Awards for the 10 best live
performances are named, was the
deepest kind of empathy, enabling
her to be convincing as everything
from Booth Tarkington’s frustrated
fi n-de-siecle Midwestern spinster
in “The Magnifi cent Ambersons”
to the killer- acerbic, supernaturally
gifted mother-in-law of a poor
slob who married the most famous
witch of all time.
This kind of empathy also exudes
from what I consider the most
beautiful pair of eyes in the city,
those of cabaret eminence Sidney
Myer. For decades now, the talent
coordinator of the venerable Don’t
Tell Mama, he extended to me as
a newbie in town, just starting to
cover a strange new world, immediate
warmth and kindness.
It’s a kindness he has extended to
hundreds of singers — some great,
some now really famous, some
good, and others decidedly less so
— who’ve all been given a shot under
his aegis.
So there is no one better to ring
in a hopefully brighter, maybe
even Trump-less 2020 with than
Maestro Myer, who will be doing
his inimitable bon vivant thing at
Pangera ( pangeanyc.com ) for two
shows on New Year’s Eve. He will
sing heartfelt essentials like “It’s
So Nice to Have a Man Around
the House,” and his piquant patter
alone should have put him on at
least part-time display at the Met
Museum’s “Camp” exhibition.
This intimate showroom holds a
special place in his heart, for not
only has he really come into his
own as a performer there, selling
out every show, but it was, indeed,
he who fi rst encouraged its owners
Stephen Shanaghan and Arnoldo
Caballero to make their dream of
turning their private party space
into the magical reality it is.
Music was always a heaven-sent
escape for Myer, from his early
childhood, and he was blessed
with understanding parents — like
a Dad who drove his diva-mad son
to a Peggy Lee gig in a tent somewhere
in the Jersey wilds and patiently
waited it out in the parking
lot! But Papa Myer took a far more
active role in the greatest diva moment
of his son’s life.
“Yes, it was a tent situation
again, but it was Judy Garland,
who, as clichéd as it sounds from
JOAN MARCUS
yet another gay man, I had worshiped
forever, although I was still
a kid,” Myer recalled. “The orchestra
began her famous overture and
— I will never forget this — before
she even entered, the entire audience
rose as one, mad with anticipation.
And then she did enter and
had to come down this aisle onto
the stage. My father was sitting on
the aisle and, as she passed at one
point, somehow she fell into his
lap. Judy Garland and my father
together mere feet away from me!
And then he did the most amazing
thing: he beckoned me over to meet
her. It was a totally unreal moment
to see my idol so close up, and, in a
daze, I approached her. She looked
at me with the saddest eyes I have
ever seen and all I could manage to
say was just, “Thank you. Thank
you. Thank you.”
And that’s exactly what I want
to say to this year’s Aggie winners,
for the beacons of exquisite
artistry, intelligence, blessed humor,
and humanity their unforgettable
work provided, so urgently
needed in a year in which very
little made any sense at all.
1. There simply was no more exhilarating,
deep and deeply moving,
spectacularly performed, or
timely play than one written 45
years ago. Ntozake Shange’s “For
Colored Girls Who Have Considered
Suicide When the Rainbow
is Enuf” remains as fresh as a
kiss, and I actually found this
profoundly lovable revival superior
to the mythic original production,
thanks to Leah C. Gardiner’s
sinuously fl uid and alive direction
and Camille A Brown’s choreography,
which in the parlance of the
Children of Paradise Garage, went
beyond “fi erce” into “OVER” (aka
OVAH). If only Shange, who died
last year at 70, could have seen
this rapturous reminder to the
world of her life-changing genius.
Her truest epitaph came from a sibling,
Ifa Bayeza, who said, “I don’t
think there’s a day on the planet
when there’s not a young woman
who discovers herself through the
words of my sister.”
2. The path which the pioneering
Shange paved, investigating,
at long last, the important but disenfranchised
lives of Black folks
is, happily, being trod upon again
and quite gloriously, by Donja R.
Love, who sheds his light on the
reality of Black men living with
HIV, like himself, in his searing
“One in Two,” the best new play
of 2019. A New Group production,
it is now playing at the Pershing
Square Signature Theatre through
January 12, and it deserves the
Pulitzer, which will probably go to
“Slave Play” or “The Inheritance,”
two critics’ darlings I found singularly
hollow and false. Like Shange,
every word Love writes is true —
including the title, referring to the
shockingly high incidence of infection
among gay Black men. When
you’ve seen as much bad and bogus
theater as I have, your built-in
bullshit detector breathes a rare
sigh of relief that you can give it
a rest, laugh your ass off at Love’s
trenchant and often satirically observed
coverage of an enormous
range of Black New Yorkers, and be
educated, as well, not only about
➤ THE AGGIES FOR 2019, continued on p.31
December 19, 2019 - January 1, 2 30 020 | GayCityNews.com
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