The cast of Nina Simone: Porscha Shaw, Shontina Vernon, Shaunyce Omar, Britney Nicole Simpson (Nate Watters) |
Seattle Repertory Theatre
Through June 2, 2019
The effect of watching four amazing women actors on stage in
the Seattle Rep production of Nina
Simone: Four Women is incredibly powerful. They pour all their committed
energy and heart into their work.
Their energy and power almost allow this earnest script,
that tries hard to give context to an iconic singer/activist that changed a lot
of lives in the 1960s and ‘70s, Nina Simone, to succeed beyond its
characterizations. Simone’s story is certainly worth staging. This script
includes valuable information to audiences that have not grown up with her
music or are not privy to areas of tension within Black America’s culture.
Playwright Christina Ham strives to educate audiences and to
theatricalize a moment of change in an artist’s life. But educational theater
is tricky and hard to pull off without limiting the expanse of drama and this
script only partly wins that battle.