Adrian Baidoo Archives - TheaterScene.net

Adrian Baidoo

Rocco, Chelsea, Adriana, Sean, Claudia, Gianna, Alex

March 4, 2019

Being described as a “theatre event,” the unwieldy titled "Rocco, Chelsea, Adriana, Sean, Claudia, Gianna, Alex" is a throwback to the happenings and performance art of the 1960’s, without having the same visceral effect. Based on original work by the devising company, playwright Dan Hasse attempts to be up to the minute by including a great many hot button issues, but the endless scenes and vignettes seem to be part of a checkoff list of items to include rather than any great need to link these disparate topics. [more]

Separate and Equal

September 15, 2018

Though the large ensemble of 11 actors is uniformly first rate--whether going through their balletic paces or tossing the invisible basketball and grasping it by clapping their hands, Pamela Afesi gives a particularly strong performance as Calvin’s mother, Viola, as does Barbra Wengerd as Edgar’s mother, Annabelle. Indeed, the crux of the play comes during an overlapping exchange with these two mothers--whose husbands abandoned their families--and their sons. [more]

On Strivers Row

June 9, 2017

Like in a Noel Coward comedy, the witty zingers come fast and furious: “That her big white Cadillac looks like a pregnant Frigidaire,” “Did you say she was from Newark or Noah’s Ark?”, “Harlem has gotten to be such a cesspool of nobodies,” “You can’t raise a rose in a junkyard,” “The ribbon around your neck is loose. Tighten it.” It also offers some very wise statements on the relationships between men and women: “women grow old from neglect and not from age,” “Regardless of how bad we women look in the morning, Oscar, we never wake up needing a shave,” “She loves the ground he staggers on.” However, the play also makes clear the rivalry between various Black enclaves: Harlem, Brooklyn and Washington, D.C. Dolly, Tillie and Mrs. Pace make pronouncements on the classiness of each. [more]