Presented by the Classic Stage Company, “black odyssey” opens with a chorus’s invocation: “Let’s begin at the beginning so we may end at the end.” This cheeky, faux-cryptic line introduces Gardley’s work, directed by Stevie Walker-Webb, as not just inspired by the plot and characters of the Odyssey but also by the formal structure of the epic poem, which begins with the same circularity and foreshadowing. Ultimately, though, Ulysses discovers that the only way he can absolve himself and return home is by finding his history.
Foy), an ancestor of Ulysses who becomes human to support Nella and Malachai while the hero is away, try to help Ulysses despite Paw Sidin’s obstacles. Alfred), and his daughter, Athena, or Aunt Tee (Harriett D. Woods), and son, Malachai (Marcus Gladney, Jr.). The god’s vengeful machinations, along with Ulysses’ own guilt, have deterred him from getting back to his wife, Nella P. Set in modern-day Harlem and beyond, “black odyssey” follows the journey of Ulysses Lincoln (Sean Boyce Johnson), a soldier in Afghanistan who unknowingly shot and killed the son of the sea god Paw Sidin (Jimonn Cole). Imagine fitting the various arenas of Black history - protests, from the March on Washington to Black Lives Matter deaths, from the enslaved lost on the Atlantic crossing to Trayvon Martin music, from Negro spirituals to Biggie Smalls - into one of the foundational texts of civilization, so old that it predates the written word itself.īut that isn’t to say that what the poet-playwright Marcus Gardley has accomplished in his often stunning but also muddled “ black odyssey,” which opened Sunday, is any less impressive for the sizable challenge it presents.
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