Posted on 09/30/2008
Accurately titled, the break/s is the fractured story of poet, teacher and hip-hop head, Marc Bamuthi Joseph, as he chronicles the role of hip-hop and poetry in his life. Traveling around the world from America’s Midwest to Tokyo to Cuba teaching classes about the music he loves, Joseph examines the influence hip-hop has on the international scene and how his own relationship to the culture expands and shifts as he faces various decisions.

With the physical presence of women being absent in this one-man show, it was striking to see the dominant role they play in his story - the 92 year old grandmother encouraging him to attend Mass with her before she dies, the biracial mother of his son, the girlfriend to whom Joseph struggles to commit and Molly, the community leader cum mentor in Senegal who opens her home and his mind. The women appear briefly and sporadically, but their challenging words and decisive acts provide much of Joseph’s motivation and are as much a part of his development as hip-hop. It is in Senegal where Joseph, when put on the spot by Molly and a village of expectant Africans, becomes an emcee.

The music, provided live onstage by Tommy (Soulati) Shepherd on drums and beatbox and DJ Excess, spins you from land to land, from one sleepless night to the next in Joseph’s award tour of the life poetic. His movement melds breaking, modern, hip-hop and African without diverting from his words or the images of Run DMC, MC Lyte, old school battles and scenes of urban life in other countries playing behind him on three large projection screens. His appreciation for hip-hop culture, not just rap music, and its ability to translate between cultures is evident. The piece is called “a mixtape for the stage,” allowing hip-hop in its many forms to appear as a work of visual art through the use of film and dance.

But the truly broken element of the show is its script. There’s not much going on other than a few well-told tales (Joseph’s Jay-Z story is a hilarious reflection on the calculating rap star before he was) loosely held together by a dancing poet, making the break/s feel like a deep dive in a wading pool. Most of the dialogue is executed as poetry, providing a lyrical quality to the narrative, but not much substance as far as real meaning and plot. There are attempts at profundity (the great line: “If you do not commit to spinning on your head, you will break your neck”), but the story is too familiar and growing all too common in the hip-hop theater set which seems to think that all stories featuring a talented performer chronicling their artistic self is worthy of a stage and an audience. One need only look to the Danny Hochs and Sarah Jones’ of the world to see that there is more gravity in discovering the stories of others, people who are struggling to make sense of often unjust circumstances, that have more impact. A man trying to reconcile his Black masculinity and hip-hop identity with the love of his White girlfriend just doesn’t rank on the ‘important’ meter. Joseph’s exploration of the double consciousness between his work and relationship are eloquently expressed, yet add little to the discussion that W.E.B. Dubois began at the turn of last century. Too many questions are left vaguely answered, if at all, to offer fulfilling rumination on the subjects broached.

The piece makes more interesting use of the questions than it does of the answers. During interview clips projected during transitions, people give their opinions on questions as simple as, ‘How do you feel about White people in hip-hop’ to some as intricate as, ‘If jazz is the broom Africans jumped over to become Americans, what is hip-hop?’ The answers are thoughtful, dismissive and sometimes as confounding as the questions.

The show’s conclusion offers no clear answers on which to put a neat ribbon on matters, which is normally a good thing. However, when that open-ended nature reflects the whole aimless spirit of the show, it feels like yet another cop out in storytelling. Instead of being led to a satisfying finale, only the length of time you’ve spent in the theater signals that you have reached the end. The story’s purpose remains murky beyond showing that hip-hop can be fun to watch onstage. Bells and whistles aside, the break/s falls apart under the weight of its own conceit.

Candace L.