Don't Bother Me, I Can't Cope - New York City Article

City Center Encores Off Season presents
“Don’t Bother Me, I Can’t Cope”
Created, with words and music, by Micki Grant
City Center
131 W 55th St., CityTix (212) 581-1212
Through Saturday July 28

This all-singing, all-dancing production emerged out of Washington D.C.’s Ford Theater in 1971 and then played Broadway for over a thousand performances starting in 1972. On the most basic level, it might be described as representing the African-American community in a revue-like format in much the same way that Hair did around the same time for the hippy-dippy youth subculture (which, let’s be honest, was actually no longer really a subculture by that point). The original was a hoot, but the new production, directed by Savion Glover, is a joy from beginning to end, a fast moving one-act assemblage of music and dance with a game and giving cast.
Micki Grant’s score is a highly authentic, yet completely copasetic combination of virtually every strain of African-American music, from soul and jazz to blues, gospel, and several rewarding numbers cast in a comic calypso beat. (And the piece titled “Billie Holiday Blues,” sung so movingly by Aisha de Haas, is actually more of a Bessie Smith kind of a straight up 12-bar blues with piano - nothing wrong with that.) While Ms. Grant is rarely shy about looking at the less-than-cheerful aspects of contemporary urban life, there’s nothing here that seeks to invoke the dreaded white liberal guilt. It’s all upbeat, tuneful, and positive, paced by Mr. Glover so that it gains momentum as it goes on and seems much too short at 75 minutes or so. By the time you get to the last number, the somewhat more politically-motivated title song, you’re dying for more. In the end, it’s more than a celebration of blackness, but a great big joyful noise about what it means to be human.

for more information and tickets, please click here.