A Strange Loop review: ‘A gaudy, bawdy, unapologetic and heartfelt delight’

There’s a full page of trigger warnings as you enter the Barbican to witness the deliciously strange spectacle that is A Strange Loop. Explicit language, racism, homophobia, rape, domestic abuse, suicidal thoughts, and HIV stigmatisation are just a few of the sensitive topics listed.

That list should also include the serious risk of wetting yourself at this meta musical’s sheer, uncensored, offend-everyone dialogue and the need to bring tissues for its swerves into unbridled, unapologetic sentimentality. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen on a mainstream stage and the fact that it exists at all is a wonder.

What started as a monologue by Michael R. Jackson (interviewed here) morphed into a one-act show that played off-Broadway in 2019, transferred to Washington DC, and looped its way back to Broadway itself. It won every major theatre award going, including two Tonys for Best Musical and Best Book of a Musical, and bagged Jackson the Pulitzer Prize, even though its Broadway run only lasted nine months.

Some reviewers felt Jackson’s anti-establishment stance (there are digs at Tyler Perry, Popeye’s Chicken, and The Lion King) and the bijou native of a show that only features six players was compromised by its staging in a big theatre. The same could be said for the choice of the vast Barbican main auditorium for its London premiere.

The widescreen set is hard for even a cast as incredibly talented as the one here to fill and the rat-a-tat-tat lyrics sometimes get lost in echoes and band drown-outs. But Jackson’s masterwork is nonetheless a gaudy, bawdy delight that starts with the declaration that “There will be white shit and black shit and butt-fucking”, delivering on the promise and then some.

It’s about a fat, black, queer theatre usher named Usher who is writing a musical about a fat, black, queer theatre usher named Usher who is… Well, that’s what the ‘loop’ in the title is all about as Jackson’s extraordinary book circles otherness, self-loathing and self-acceptance, sexual degradation, parental disdain, and the specific issues faced by gay black men.

All of which might make it sound like a downer, but it’s a wry and sly comedy with a heart that beats as passionately as that of its protagonist. His journey is beset with heartache and rejection but he emerges victorious in what amounts to a celebration of queerness in all its complexities.

Originally part of the Broadway cast, Kyle Ramar Freeman gives the sort of heartfelt, nuanced, no-holds-barred performance for which there simply aren’t enough superlatives. He’s surrounded by a sort of Greek chorus of six Thoughts who have sass to spare and they all deserve a namecheck: Nathan Armarkwei-Laryea, Danny Bailey, Eddie Elliott, Sharlene Hector, Tendai Humphrey Sitima, and Yeukayi Ushe.

Jackson’s music is a bit too conventional (although his lyrics are jaw-droppingly in-your-face) but maybe that’s the point. Working within a traditional framework, he’s fashioned something that defies categorisation as it boldly goes where no musical has ever gone before.

A Strange Loop is at the Barbican, London, until 9 September. Get tickets here.