by Amrita Mangus, Allen Lee Hughes Dramaturgy Fellow
It's hard to believe that today is the final day of rehearsal for Psalmeyene24's Journey to the Door of No Return: A Hip Hop Odyssey. Mirroring the play's central storyline of a young man embarking on an odyssey-inspired journey in search of knowledge and discovery, we've encountered a pretty monumental "journey" in the rehearsal room as we workshopped the first Hip Hop piece in the Downstairs series.
During the first day of rehearsal, we read the play out loud without incorporating any of the music or movement and quickly realized that both elements are essential characters in the piece that help the narrative move forward. We then broke up our rehearsals for the next few days so that we could spend more time with the music and the movement, taking the rap songs and analyzing the meaning, meter, and beats and determining whether the movement represents a certain dance style or helps define a location. Having very little experience with hip hop music and dance, I was fascinated by the impact of these elements on the entire piece once we started to put everything together. One moment that particularly struck me was during a recitation of Public Enemy's "Don't Believe the Hype" by the main character, Baraka, after he's accused of stealing by his manager at the Gap. The actor first rapped the song with the same meter and music as the original song, but then realized that it didn't quite fit what he wanted to say. Our director, Kamilah Forbes, then proposed rapping the song with the focus on his intention and motivation, allowing him to spend more time with certain words and re-imagine it in the context of the play. The results blew my mind, completely. It deepened the meaning of that moment and made the entire theatrical experience far more exciting.
That's just one of the fantastic moments that you can catch tonight at the staged reading, starting at 7:00 p.m. in the Crystal City Theater. Admission is free, so check it out! Watch the story, the music, and the movement come together, then stay for the talkback with the playwright and tell us what you think. The journey doesn't end until the final ingredient, the audience, is incorporated into the mix.
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