When Melvin Van Peebles' "Ain't Supposed to Die a Natural Death" premiered on Broadway in 1971, it wasn't your grandmother's high-stepping, happy black musical. A collage of scenes depicted -- in sometimes poetic, sometimes shockingly realistic terms -- the grit, violence, and victimization of ghetto life. Anticipating hip-hop and rap, Van Peebles underscored ranting monologues with jazz-infused accompaniment. The show was angry, uncompromising, and confrontational.
Both the inherent pain and excitement of the work are palpable in this vibrant revival with an amazing 18-person cast, inspired direction and choreography from Alfred Preisser and Bruce Heath (respectively), a six-person band led by musical director William "Spaceman" Patterson, and evocative production values throughout.
The company, melded into a seamless ensemble, pulsates with life, whether enacting a merrily bouncing bus ride or letting rage ignite into riot. Galvanizing minidramas take shape out of nowhere: a strutting pimp (played with flare by Ty Jones) brutally pummels a whore who's held back $5 of her earnings; a convict (J. Kyle Manzay) awaiting execution recalls in a sexually charged reverie the woman he killed in a jealous fit; a looter clocks his speed as he runs from the law but is finally gunned down; and a prostitute is raped by the cops, both black and white.
The show has some oddities. Unless I missed it in the whirl of action, there's little said about drugs. And, perhaps most tellingly, when in the terrifying conclusion a bag lady transforms into a voodoolike goddess to curse the audience, presumably dooming a white audience to a life of black despair, it's a bit confusing when that audience is predominantly black, as at the performance I attended. Still, the audience seemed to get the message, and these wrinkles aside, it's sad, in the broader sense, to say that the 33-year-old piece has lost little of its relevance and bite.