A doll doesn't have to be pretty. And the seven doll-like characters in Ntozake Shange's choreopoem, for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf, are very unpretty. Terrifying, actually. From the moment they come on stage (in the book) with these directions, they scare the crap out of you:
The stage is in darkness. Harsh music is heard as dim blue lights come up. One after another, seven women run onto the stage from each of the exits. They all freeze in postures of distress. The follow spot picks up the lady in brown. She comes to life and looks around at the other ladies. All of the others are still. She walks over to the lady in red and calls to her. The lady in red makes no response.
And they keep on scaring you with their violent, sad life stories of rape, poverty, prostitution, domestic violence, until the end when they gather together in a group hug that seems too contrived for resolution (though maybe it's the start of something new--sisterhood?), and reads more like seven pairs of arms wrapped oddly around a cold tree:
All of the ladies repeat to themselves softly the lines 'i found god in myself & i loved her.' It soon becomes a song of joy, started by the lady in blue. The ladies sing first to each other, then gradually to the audience. After the song peaks, the ladies enter into a closed tight circle.
I got chills from start to finish and put it down with one last shudder, resolving to postpone seeing the movie version until I managed to warm up somehow. I still haven't, though I may go to see it sometime this week anyway.
Noted irony... The 1974-75 work, which has now made its way through at least four forms of presentation, and numerous creative forces--live poem, stage play, play in book form, movie, actors, directors, broadway, hollywood--is anything but dead-doll-like and cold. It has proven that a work of art can seem boundless and can enjoy a healthy lifespan. But the remaining coldest, harshest truth about it is that the lives of the black women depicted in it are still very familiar and current.
[More after I've seen the movie]
