The Colored Museum - Review

Last Sunday, I went to a performance of The Colored Museum at the Victoria and Albert Museum, in west London.  Unusual for me, I had no expectations, having read no reviews and without actually having any idea what it was about. I also arrived slightly delirious; something to do with cycling from Hackney, and the combination of traffic fumes and terror, topped off with a high impact scone and jam.

As we queued to go into the theatre, I bumped into a friend who had already seen it.  She described it as very funny, but also depressing.  Not, I was hoping, a black Eastenders.

And it certainly wasn't.  An hour and a half later, I couldn't really find my own words to describe it.  And for me - that's rare.

The Colored Museum pulls out and pokes African-American stereotypes and archetypes.  It is shocking, opening by welcoming us to celebrity slaveship, instructing us how to put on our shackles. We're forbidden from laughing at this stuff, aren't we? It was like hearing your grandmother swear in public - you gasp in shock, but also want to giggle.   The hostess also reminds us to substitute 'de' for 'the' should we choose to sing along.

Amongst other 'exhibits', we meet a soldier, resurrected from the dead to put other 'coloured soldiers' out of their future pain.  There is a diva reinventing herself to tragedy, the Topsy-like waif who has laid a giant egg and the warring hairpieces, afro-with-attitude versus dramatic and swishy.  So yes, it is surreal, as well as shocking.  There are moments of extreme sadness as well as moments that I just didn't get.

I was hindered by the fact that is was written in 1985 and focuses on African American experience.  The writer, quite rightly, does not want the audience to have an easy time; we are bounced from humour to discomfort within minutes.  Most particularly, we are invited to laugh at/with the ultra-camp Miss Roj, resplendent in skintight gold lame and shimmery eye shadow.  He flirts with the waiter and jokes about shutting up homophobes, all the while knocking back drinks.  Gradually he reveals his utter despair and, of course, we feel ashamed at laughing in the first place.

But time and distance meant I didn't always undertand the points of reference, so I didn't know what I should have been thinking.  This was nothing to do with the actors who were superb.

I understood that the work was about a society trying to patch together its psyche after deep-rooted trauma.  I also understood that some of this 'patching' was destroying people, through consumerism, alcohol, self-denial and self-hate.

I understood the sum of it - I suppose I just needed a bit more help with the different parts.