Ben
Brantley

March 1, 2016

The term “post-traumatic stress disorder” inevitably comes up in diagnoses of the strange and tragic case of Beau Willie Brown. He’s a Vietnam War veteran and the charismatic force of destruction at the center of “But I Cd Only Whisper,” Kristiana Rae Colón’s feverishly poetic portrait of the life and times of a violent man, which is receiving its American premiere at the Flea Theater. But there’s nothing “post” about Beau’s particular disorder. Long before the United States Army put a gun in his hands, this child of a poor black neighborhood was conditioned to attack — by a toxic confluence of environment, circumstance and an innately combustible nature. As a sergeant from his platoon puts it, Beau “had a knack for killing” that seemed uncannily natural. First staged at the Arcola Theater in London in 2012, “But I Cd Only Whisper” is a lavish expansion on “A Nite With Beau Willie Brown,” a monologue from “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/ When the Rainbow Is Enuf,” Ntozake Shange’s landmark play from the mid-1970s. Ms. Shange’s soliloquy portrays an unthinkable crime committed by Beau after he returns from Vietnam, from the perspective of his longtime lover, Crystal.