Not a Genuine Black Man

Brian Copeland’s one-​man show centers on his childhood experience of growing up in the 70’s in a California town named in Congressional hearings as one of the most racist suburbs in America. His stories of discrimination can be riveting, surprising, and painful to hear. And an interesting facet of the show is that his character is under siege not only from the racist outside world, but within his own family, in the form of an abusive father.
Although I understood the tactic of cutting back and forth among various time periods and events in that it connected various themes, it interrupted continuity and sometimes made the show hard to follow. Moreover, the high-​pitched, exaggeratedly innocent voices Copeland uses for his boyhood self and young sister can be pretty annoying, and the show can seem overly theatrical and less than genuine (blackness aside) at times.
That said, Copeland’s stories serve as a necessary reminder that the effects of past and present racism are legion in America — particularly for those of us living in relatively liberal Manhattan. The show also poses interesting questions about what it means to be «black» in America, and why being successful and well spoken is often derided as «white» within the black community. For these reasons, it is a very worthwhile experience, although I’d say it succeeds more on the level of a thought piece than as a play.