When the character Blake, the media mogul in the play CrazySexyCool, the TLC Musical, calls the group’s work “bubble gum music,” I agreed with him. But then No Scrubs opened the second act. And it became clear that the entire first act (which is as dazzling an example of theatrical shock and awe as you would ever want to see) had laid the groundwork that would force us Blakeans to reassess our thinking of this song and TLC’s canon in general. Writer/director Kwame Kwei-Armah understood that however cute and catchy TLC’s songs might be, they are the work of bona fide artists who practiced facing their lives honestly and transforming those experiences into art that names their (and our) wounds and makes spaces for healing. Their songs may be danceable and full of female energy, but that doesn’t mean they’re disposable.
TLC stands for Tionne ’T-Boz’ Watkins, Liz (‘Left Eye’) Lopes, and Rozonda ‘Chili’ Thomas, the three artists who make up the group. This trio of women stood together in opposition to an industry and a world that continued to repeatedly demonstrate its commitment to policing their Blackness and their womanhood. And by their demonstration of opposition, they became both role models for and witnesses to the efforts of a generation of women – Black women especially to do the same. CrazySexyCool is an astounding tribute to them.
CrazySexyCool is not a jukebox musical. The script excavates and lays out the subtext that TLC’s musical catalog implies. And these performers come off as musicians in the Black American music tradition who could hold a stadium audience but who are performing for their fans in The Kreeger Theater. Audience members were calling back to the performers at the right moments (and because this music is firmly in a particular tradition, they did not need to be instructed when the right moments were) and dancing in their seats. The show is unapologetically Black. It’s like walking into a secular version of a Black church. Ain’t nobody going to throw you out. (I remember Emmanuel AME Church, here.) But whether you relax into it or not, the ritual will continue.
Except for one moment that allows Lisa ‘Left Eye’ to ask Chili (a Seventh Day Adventist), “Tell me about your God,” these Black women are rarely not onstage or being watched in some way. For example, the wooing of Lisa ‘Left Eye’ by basketball player Michael is supposedly a private conversation. But, in fact, it is clocked and scored by everyone in the room, including us, the audience. This made me think of slave auctions; everything was urgent and intense yet nonchalant and cool. The choreography took this mixture of feelings and milked them for all they were worth.
Each dancer’s body displayed astonishing control over every muscle, executing choreography from a wide variety of influences.
Repeatedly, a pattern would begin downstage. And just as you’re sure you know what you’re seeing, another pattern is established upstage, moving in counterpoint to the first. Chloe O. Davis’s diverse choreography is mind-boggling without being confusing.
CrazySexyCool is ultimately a reverent and ecstatic reminder of how Black folks have been singing and dancing their survival since their arrival on European ships and how this specific group of women continued the tradition and inspire others to do the same.
One of the trio described the energy that drives her and the show: “When I was a young girl, the world told me, day in and day out, that I shouldn’t dream.”
Early on, Rikara, Blake’s eager intern and a TLC fan puts it this way: “Maybe you can’t see it, but for me, as a woman, they’re revolutionary.”
Gregory Ford is the Anacostia Coordinating Council Arts & Culture Critic. He is also an actor and singer. He is a member of Verbal Gymnastics Playback Theater troupe. He has written for Capital Community News and continues to write for dctheaterarts.org, focusing on College and University Theater Productions. He is a clinical psychodrama practitioner. Mr. Ford lives in Northeast Boundary in Ward 7.
