Choir Boy, written by Moonlight Oscar winner Tarell Alvin McCraney, is a moving, lively and firmly contemporary coming-of-age story interwoven with soaring gospel hymns. The play follows prep school senior Pharus Young (Andrew Broderick), who is the leader of the school’s celebrated gospel choir, as he wrestles with his masculinity and sexuality. The production is directed by two-time Montreal English Theatre Award (META) recipient Mike Payette, who previously directed a production of Choir Boy for Montreal’s Centaur Theatre in 2018. And if the enthusiastic audience reception on opening night is an indication, the production on stage now at the Bluma Appel Theatre is destined to be a smash success.
The play opens with Pharus, a Junior at the Charles R. Drew Prep School for Boys, singing the school song “Trust and Obey” at commencement only to be startled by the homophobic slurs of some classmates. When his headmaster demands to know the identity of the bullies, Pharus can see the slippery slope that lies ahead. He aspires to be a principled “Drew man”—even if that requires him to withhold certain truths. His pride at being chosen to sing at the graduation stops him from snitching on legacy student and nephew of the Headmaster Bobby Marrow (Kwaku Okyere) for taunting him about his “sissy” mannerisms. A strutting, magnetic force of nature, Broderick’s Pharus is talented, religious and unapologetically forthright about his queerness. In fact, his candour worries Headmaster Marrow (Daren A. Herbert). To avoid provoking the school bullies, he advises Pharus to “tighten up. Like all men, hold something in.”
Choir Boy is ultimately the story of not one, but five choir boys learning to become men: Pharus and antagonist Bobby; Bobby’s friend Junior, who is a wily cut-up played winningly by Clarence (CJ) Jura; scholarship student David (David Andrew Reid ), who aspires to become a minister; and Pharus’ roommate AJ, played with an understated strength by Savion Roach as an athlete from Georgia who plays against type. Each has his own narrative arc within the microcosm of an exclusive boarding school that reflects the prevalent traits of a wider society.
Choir Boy is distinguished by McCraney’s specifically Black middle-class setting paired with the play’s rich meditation on sexuality, masculinity, race and identity. This is a representation and mix we can hope to see depicted on Toronto stages more often. The playwright also offers a refreshing detour by making the sole white character, semi-retired white historian Mr. Pendleton (Scott Bellis), the voice of social consciousness. A man who marched with Martin Luther King, Jr, Pendleton is acutely sensitive to intolerance among the students, as well as their individual and collective needs.
And what is a play about a choir school without the music? Happily, we don’t need to find out. The theme of music’s power to heal and comfort is gloriously manifested in song after sonorous, multi-layered song – exquisitely rendered by this outstanding ensemble of actors. When the homesick students sing “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child”, expect goosebumps – and have a tissue at the ready.
Although the 110-minute run time is long, Payette’s tight direction of the vignette-like scenes, their thematic richness (especially the insightful debate about Negro spirituals in Mr Pendleton’s creative thinking class), the raw intensity of the acting ensemble — plus these gorgeous songs and acapella harmonies arranged by music director Floydd Ricketts — make this production a highlight of the fall theatre season that will make souls sing.
Reserve tickets to Choir Boy on canadianstage.ca.
© Arpita Ghosal, SesayArts Magazine, 2022
