A STRANGE LOOP: THE I’S HAVE IT IN A REMARKABLE MUSICAL ACHIEVEMENT
9 / 10
Usher’s a people-person in another sense. He has six strands of “golden braid” working on him at all times: an ensemble of “Thoughts,” who alternately hector, insult, question, and discourage him. I see them as the Self-Sabotage Sextet, or in Jackson’s lexicon, “Usher’s perceptions of reality, inside and out.” Now hilariously, later terrifyingly, they represent all the negativity we battle, often transforming into the fantasies that never come to good, or the real-life friends and families who often as not disappoint. What a marvelous ensemble director Stephen Brackett has marshalled, choreographed smoothly by Raja Feather Kelly in his Broadway bow. Each Thought/reality perception is a distinct type and master of accents, and they meld like an improv company that’s been working together for ages.
