This past weekend L. took me to see one of the best live performances I have ever seen. It is called Freight: The Five Incarnations of Abel Green. It stars J. Alphonse Nicholson who I know from seeing in the background of a few TV series and also on the show P Valley. This is a solo show and I don't think I've ever actually seen a solo show live before. He plays a man named Abel Green and it goes through five different monologues and each one is a different version of Abel throughout time. The first one takes place in the early 1900s where he is part of a minstrel show. The second one he's a faith healer who gets really popular and very wealthy only to discover the truth about his healing abilities and his faith. The third one he's an FBI informant that's pretty much snitching on the Black Panthers in the 1960s. The fourth he's an actor who has all of the guilt for turning his back on a friend after discovering he is HIV positive. The final one he's a homeless man around 2010 and he tells a story of how he became that way.
Each one of these monologues was good and earlier today at work I was walking around thinking about this performance and trying to see which one of these was my favorite and I went back and forth between them. It's not as if I actually need to choose a favorite: they were all good. I did not know what to expect after we arrived in a theater and saw online how small it was and I was very happy she did not get front row seats because you would have been able to rest your feet on the stage it was so close. It's a very small and intimate theater and you are elbow to elbow with other people. That's not a complaint I'm just saying this is a small place so if there's ever a performance you want to see you need to make sure you get your tickets. When she first looked up the tickets there were only a few sold but as we were sitting and watching the performance it was completely sold out.
It's a 90-minute show with no intermission and after seeing The Six I'm realizing I like this no intermission thing. I know it can't be done with every show though. There was one point in the show where he was looking right at L. and doing his monologue and after he stopped looking at her and she snapped out of it she couldn't even remember what he was saying and I had to let her know. That man stole my woman for a few seconds! He is an incredible actor and his ability to switch between not only the different characters but the emotions that they portrayed was crazy to watch so close up. And once again I need to point out that you do not need a massive set and complex things to make a show good. This had a suitcase, four chairs, and some screens. I believe this show is only running for one more week and it started I believe in November. If you do get a chance to see this somehow you really should. And this man needs to be on the screen more. He was that damn good.
written by Howard L. Craft
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