Dark Meat on a Funny Mind
Opening Night: July 31, 2014
Closing: August 24, 2014
Theater: Nuyorican Poets Cafe
The Nuyorican Poets Cafe presents the world premiere of Wesley Brown’s play Dark Meat on a Funny Mind, which stars renowned stage and screen actor Charles Weldon as legendary comedian Richard Pryor. In Dark Meat, Pryor and his mischievous alter ego (played by Trish McCall) revisit the characters who shaped his life and inspired his career. Brown’s play uses original stand-up and storytelling material to reveal the mercurial, hilarious and painful dimensions of the famed comedian’s life.
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August 19, 2014
Louis C.K. once began a riff about how much he hated standing in the audience of a comedy show by joking that even if Richard Pryor came back from the dead, he would still see Pryor’s show only if he could sit down. The fantasy of seeing Pryor do stand-up again is a large part of the appeal for any play about that comedian, but it’s also why pulling off the performance is so difficult. It shouldn’t surprise that Dark Meat on a Funny Mind, a clumsy stumble through the highlights of Pryor’s life, presents the comedian with none of his magnetism. Charles Weldon doesn’t look or sound like the man he’s portraying. Nor does he capture his daring, existential fear or ruthless, even dangerous commitment to confessional comedy. Part of the problem is that he hasn’t committed his lines to memory — and it’s hard to sustain confidence in a play about a wildly brilliant comedian when the lights go up on two podiums with scripts on top of them. (Mr. Weldon replaced Anthony Chisholm, who dropped out.)
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