Gay, black playwright examines homophobia in hip-hop and reggae: Opens new work, ‘American Trade’
”That [song] is saying, ‘I’m going to shoot a gay man in the head’, ‘burn the chi chi man down’. These were the songs that were ringing down my block. And people were dancing to it and screaming to it and jumping up and down. Those cries, that shouting and celebrating. I mean, the day I heard that song in my neighbourhood, I had to be like 11 years old. It came on the radio and scared me so much, I almost cried. But I couldn’t cry because I thought that maybe someone would know I was gay.”
Tarell Alvin McCraney relaying part of the inspiration for his new play, “American Trade.” The play is about a New York hustler, Pharus, who moves to London. At some point the story involves a congressman launching an investigation into homophobia in hip hop music. Here, McCraney refers to a popular dancehall song he heard as a boy called “Chi Chi Man” by TOK.
McCraney is now a Playwright in Residence for the Royal Shakespeare Company, but he tells the Evening Standard about his tumultuous childhood. He says he grew up in Miami with a young, drug-addicted mother who suffered from abuse and a series of losses. McCraney says a theater workshop in Miami changed his life, that without it he might not be alive. (Evening Standard)
”American Trade” opens at the Hampstead Theatre in London on June 2.
The RSC released a video in February where McCraney explans the genesis of ”American Trade,” and the process he wa going through to take the play from the page to the stage.
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