Single Black Female

photo: Gerry Goodstein

Ok, so it's essentially less a play than a stand-up comedy routine for two, and granted, it feels overextended over two acts. But damn did I laugh and have a good time at this consistently lively, enormously entertaining show in which two single black gals bring the usually hilarious low-down about dating and some thoughtful realness about racial identity; if the hmm-mmm's and the Amen's all around me were any indication, so did the audience I saw it with. Much of the show's often politically incorect and hard R-rated humor is just plain fun for anyone who can identify with the search for a good man, but there's also a healthy dose of specific cultural observation and relevance in Lisa B. Thompson's script, which calls upon the show's two performers (Riddick Marie and Soara-Joy Ross, both funny and endearing) to play a variety of characters. The show has been snappily directed to move swiftly by Colman Domingo, who can currently be seen on stage in Passing Strange. The two shows have something else in common: each brings middle-class black characters to the stage where they are woefully under-represented.