Kiba Walker on stage with his “thoughts” in A Strange Loop
I often recommend area theater productions to friends — and sometimes strangers. But I’ve never recommended a show to a whole swath of people. Yet after watching Circle Theatre’s regional premiere of A Strange Loop last Saturday, June 21, in Fort Worth, I was shook.
I hope everyone who identifies as queer will catch it. But if you identify as a gay man, let me be direct: Go see this show.
Go see it not just because it won the Pulitzer Prize or because it swept Broadway with critical acclaim and Tony Awards.
Go see it because, as gay men, we rarely get to see our mess, our contradictions, our joy and our trauma put on stage so unapologetically, so specifically and so universally.
A Strange Loop is an atypical musical. The vibes are raw, provocative, hilarious and heartbreaking. The language and imagery is harsh. Written by Michael R. Jackson, the show centers on Usher, a Black queer man writing a musical about a Black queer man writing a musical — hence the loop.
But Usher is also a mirror, and I saw parts of myself staring back — several parts. I saw the parts I like, the parts I hide and the parts I haven’t even processed yet.
After that opening night performance, I hastily made my way to my car a couple blocks away and sat in stunned silence — not because I didn’t get it, but because I got it too much.
I then broke down in tears.
Before I go on, I’m compelled to say that I don’t want to appropriate this Black queer story as my own. But Jackson’s clever writing addresses so many issues that I think all gay men face: self-doubt, self-image, family, religion, ambition. Many elements of the story hit home with the grace of a bulldozer.
I’ve never seen our story told in a way that didn’t beg for straight validation nor did it soften its edges for mainstream audiences. Usher’s trauma — our trauma — wasn’t wrapped up with a tidy resolution hidden in a showtune. The musical made me laugh out loud and cringe uncomfortably, but so much of it spoke directly to the inner monologue many of us run on loop in our own heads: that mix of doubt, shame, desire, rage and a need for something more than what we’ve been taught to settle for.
Kiba Walker, in his first professional theater role, played Usher in a touching and beautiful performance layered with humor, intelligence and a shaky confidence. Usher is surrounded by intrusive thoughts portrayed by six incredible actors. They are mocking, seductive and cruel.
In this show, he’s told by his family, his hook-ups, his agent and himself that he is too much, too loud, too Black, too fat, too queer. How often those similar sentiments flood my own brain.
This isn’t a show for escape or catharsis. The show is here to offer truth — truth for gay men — especially gay men of color. How radical is that?
If you’re white and gay, Loop will challenge you. Gay with a side of religion? The show will almost call you out but embrace you as well. If you’re thick like Usher — or whatever your body image is — in a community that’s obsessed with ripped perfection, A Strange Loop doesn’t flatter us, but it sees us.
What makes this show brilliant (for a review, visit DallasVoice.com) is its bold outness.
Fabulous songs and characters bring this magical show to real life despite most of us living through our Instagrams and TikToks.
This Black gay experience is revolutionary and unabashed and is helping me find peace still in my own identity as a brown gay man.
What a gift Jackson has bestowed on the world — and on us.
OK, but also, this show is funny as hell, even amid the racial and queer slurs that Usher uses on himself and the perpetual abuse. The emotional weight is heavy, but that levity is what queer people have been doing forever. Jackson gives us a familiar strange loop —– how we move between pain and humor to survive.
A poignant moment for me was at the curtain call when Walker was holding back tears facing a standing ovation. I like to think he conquered his own doubts in that moment — or stepped closer to that. In many ways, he was us — or perhaps, me. At the same time, he was inspirational.
The selfish part of me only wants the queer community to see this show. I ended up seeing it alone, but it was meditative, and I could absorb it all. I hope to get back with any of my queer friends to share this profound experience.
As a gay man, I felt this in my bones, and I would almost guarantee you — you other gay men — that you will too. We all aren’t Usher, but we are all navigating something internally.
If you’ve ever felt not gay enough, or too gay, or like you didn’t belong even in spaces made for you — see this show.
If you’ve wrestled with your image, your size, your income, your mental health or even your racial identity that all intersect with your queerness — see this show.
Please. I am literally begging you to take your friends, your inner child, your unresolved issues, your joys, fears and shame — and they will be named and sung out loud and hopefully understood a little better.
Honestly, I’d take you all myself if I could.