James Haddrell reviews hit musical A Strange Loop playing at the Barbican
It is not often that you’ll see names like Jennifer Hudson, Alan Cumming and Hollywood producer-director Frank Marshall attached to London theatre, particularly linked to the same show, but they are just three of the people who have come together to bring Broadway smash-hit musical A Strange Loop to the Barbican.
Michael R. Jackson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning musical, nominated for 11 Tony Awards and winner of every Best Musical award in New York, has been hailed as a blisteringly funny masterpiece.
The Pulitzer Prize committee described the show as a “metafictional musical that tracks the creative process of an artist transforming issues of identity, race, and sexuality that once pushed him to the margins of the cultural mainstream into a meditation on universal human fears and insecurities”.
With the Pulitzer under his belt, playwright, composer, and lyricist Jackson has quickly gained recognition as one of the most innovative voices in American theatre.
A Strange Loop is only the 10th musical to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama (the previous winner was Hamilton).
The New York Times hailed it as “a dazzling ride [for which] no measure of praise could be too much”.
The Wall Street Journal said “A Strange Loop is extraordinary in just about every way. It represents theatre at its most daring and unexpected”, while Variety called it “the most furiously entertaining show on Broadway”.
The show follows the fortunes of Usher, a young, gay, black writer who hates his day job, so writes a musical about a young, gay, black writer who is writing a musical about a young, gay, black writer.
After the popularity of the remake of Jonathan Larson’s Tick Tick Boom for Netflix, this could be the perfect time for a new meta-musical about theatre to arrive in London.
Kyle Ramar Freeman is set to reprise the lead role he played on Broadway, alongside a cast of six British performers including the multi-Olivier nominated Jason Pennycooke from the original cast of Hamilton and the Greenwich Theatre revival of Charles Strouse’s Golden Boy, and Sharlene Hector, lead vocalist for British band Basement Jaxx.
Jackson said: “I couldn’t be more excited to test the universality of Usher’s journey of self-acceptance with this extraordinary London company. I am even more excited to bring Broadway powerhouse Kyle Ramar Freeman to London to anchor this production of A Strange Loop. Kyle is an immense talent and I have no doubt that London audiences will fall as in love with him as they did in New York City.”
A Strange Loop begins a strictly limited 12-week season at the Barbican from June 17.
Website: https://strangeloopmusical.com/
Picture: Broadway production of A Strange Loop Picture: Marc J Franklin
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