Choir Boy: the rainbow 'round the shoulder and the fire next time
11 Nov 2022

by Drew Rowsome - Production photos by Dahlia Katz ; Portraits by John Lauener 

The lord works in mysterious ways, but the devil's got time on his hands

From the instant David Andrew Reid (Hair) launches into the first song, the audience is galvanized. Mesmerized. The singing in Choir Boy is extraordinary. Gospel music has a way of directly accessing the soul, of making the hairs on the back of one's neck stand up, and this cast holds nothing back, emotionally or vocally. For an evening of musical theatre, that would be enough to make for a rousing success. Blessedly, this production has more on its mind. Much more.

Pharus is the rising star of a black Christian boarding school for young men. He has the honour of singing at the 49th annual commencement. The school song warns "trust and obey, trust and obey, for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey." Pharus chokes during his rendition and that is the first event that threatens his position as choirmaster at the school. As incarnated by Andrew Broderick (Love Train, Erased: Billy & Bayard), Pharus is a quick-witted outwardly secure gayboy who can turn his effeminacy on and off as needed. It is a weapon as well as a refuge. We do get to see the vulnerability underneath and just how much it has, how much it is, costing him to live openly. As Choir Boy gets underway, we are lead to believe that we are about to witness a coming out narrative. We are. But one with twists and turns, an unexpected ally, an even less-expected nemesis, and a searing example of how external homophobia can lead to horrifying self-loathing in even the fiercest of queens.

The text by Tarell Alvin McCraney (Moonlight) fuses ingeniously with the gospel music to create a duality that provides not a catharsis, but something just a step beyond that. Instead of ending with a Pride parade, the cast explodes into a mash-up of two classic gospel songs: "There's a Rainbow 'Round My Shoulder" and "The Fire Next Time." Credit here undoubtedly also goes to composer/arranger Floydd Ricketts for adapting the spiritual that gave James Baldwin his evocative title. "There's a Rainbow 'Round My Shoulder" was a minor hit love song for Bobby Darin, a big hit for Al Jolson, but it was based on an older spiritual sung while working. The rainbow in the working song doesn't refer to a celestial vision, and probably not to anything LGBTQ, bur rather to wielding a pick axe so rapidly and forcefully that it becomes red hot. The rhythm is the rhythm of a chain gang. In this context it is a pick axe to our hearts.

The many facets of gospel music—as celebration, as oppression, as coded messages—echo the many facets of masculinity and sexuality. Of what these boys are trying to become. Or escape from. Director Mike Payette (Cockroach, Angelique) and a triple-threat stacked cast, take a difficult daunting theme and make it both engrossing and moving. Even the set with the looming stained glass that is as threatening as it is beautiful, and winding staircases to bookshelves weighted with knowledge and rules, is constantly shifting. I saw a preview and a few of the set changes, though carefully obscured by either business or music, were bumpy. Once literally, though the save by Broderick and Savion Roach (Is God Is) was not only perfectly in character but added a depth to both characters. The cast functions that smoothly, like the practiced singers that must meld to form a choir. Clarence 'CJ' Jura grafts his powerful baritone onto a comic sidekick who can't help himself once goaded into action, and Kwaku Okyere (Iphigenia and the Furies, Shove It Down My Throat, The Seat Next to the King) is a firebrand full of righteous fury and blessed with a smoky tenor. Roach has the most difficult acting role, conveying a lot in a limited range. He does it piercingly and shatters our hearts. No fireworks but a slow solid burn.

That is perhaps the biggest strength of Choir Boy. It is a slice of life with a really ripping soundtrack. The singing is breathtaking without resorting to melodrama or melisma, the acting naturalistic. We believe what we see and hear so that the specific painful crises of faith, history and sexuality of a group of boys, becomes universal. Scott Bellis works smoothly as a foil, the sole non-black character, but also instigates a fascinating thematic expositional debate. And while Daren A Herbert (Jesus Hopped the 'A' Train, Onegin, If/Then, Do You Want What I Have Got? A Craigslist Cantata) is exemplary as the headmaster torn between his duties and his duties to his charges. It is a relief to find that—spoiler alert!—Herbert does finally sing and that incredible voice of his is heard. There is one questionable statement that even Herbert's thespian skills can't paper over: it is hard to imagine that a headmaster at a boy's boarding school, even if a novice, wouldn't have been briefed or trained on how to deal with sexual activity amongst the boys.  

There is alas one flaw in the mise-en-scene. An elaborate and spectacular part of the set design by Rachel Forbes includes working showers studded with smoked glass windows. While the desired level of homoerotic tension is instantly achieved (the cast is uniformly attractive whether in or out of schoolboy uniforms), the modesty protecting glass does not prevent us from seeing that those in the shower are wearing bathing suits. I'm not suggesting that Choir Boy go all Take Me Out or Oz, in this case the obscuring is metaphorically crucial, but there must be a better compromise. 

The subversive soul of gospel is delicately but blatantly related to, and contrasted with, the subversive strength of the queer sensibility. Two means of survival that meld in the character of Pharus. Choir Boy sings exultantly to the mysterious ways of the Lord, but devilishly reminds us that we are flesh and as subject to the ecstasy of the music as to its devotional aspects. Pharus questions whether spirituals being uplifting is not enough. Does it also have to be coded, clever and full of deeper meaning? Fortunately, Choir Boy doesn't have to choose.