The Scottsboro Boys

Guthrie Theater

Minneapolis

(612) 377-2224

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The Scottsboro Boys is an “upside-down minstrel show,” said Chris Hewitt in the St. Paul, Minn., Pioneer Press. While those cheerfully racist 19th-century song-and-dance acts usually featured white men in blackface, the final collaboration between composer John Kander and lyricist Fred Ebb uses an all-black cast to tell a true and tragic story. The Scottsboro Boys were nine young African-American men who, in the 1930s, were falsely convicted of raping white women in Alabama. In this show, contrary to the usual conventions of minstrelsy, these men are allowed to “retain their dignity.” Instead, the ones who come across as “exaggerated buffoons” are the white judges, jailers, and lawyers who allowed racism to triumph. Inverting the expectations of the genre while stealing its look and feel is a risky gimmick, but it pays off, as The Scottsboro Boys pointedly underscores “what was really turned on its head” in the actual case—that is, the ideal of justice.

Still, The Scottsboro Boys sometimes suffers from an inappropriate tone, said Graydon Royce in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Some audience members may find it hard to accept that “a minstrel show built on winks and smiles” can truly pay honor to nine real-life victims of institutionalized racism. The song “Electric Chair” uses tap dancing to mimic the “panic of electrocution,” while the upbeat “That’s Not the Way We Do Things” stingingly “satirizes Northern liberal guilt.” Such numbers tread a thin line between wit, showmanship, and bad taste. Fortunately, director Susan Stroman navigates those pitfalls with absolute precision. Seldom has “the cruel whim of racism” been presented in so entertaining—or disturbing—a package.